Roll on christmas!

Here's one of the advent calendars all finished! Filled with all sorts of treats and dressed up as a present!

So what do you think?

I still have a booty of sweets to fill the rest on the advent calendars I have on the go, hopefully I'll finish them before I eat all the sweets!

This one's for sale for £25 including all the sweets inside, email me for details. More are on their way too!

Christmas comes to school!

Do you remember all the christmas stuff you made at school? Maybe you still hang them on the tree, or maybe your house is already full of your children's homemade decorations?

Well, why not relive these days by making your own calendar or getting some kids together to make them. Some very lucky primary school kids in my town are now making their very own versions of my favourite advent calendar after I showed them to my friend who's a teacher.

I sent along some half finished calendars so they could see the process of how to make them and they were so excited! They all brought in their cereal boxes ready for action! I'm really looking forward to seeing what creations they make, who knows, maybe I'll get some inspiration for new ideas from it.

Do you know any kids that would enjoy getting all messy and creating their own special advent calendar? Or maybe your partner would love a tailored, unique gift for the run up to christmas? Please feel free to send me an ideas or requests and I will see if I can create something to your liking :-)

and hopefully I will be able to show you the wonderful creations from the school kids soon!

My favourite easy advent calendar

I'm going to share with you an advent calendar I've made many times, and it's great as you can easily change it to make any shape you like! This is a great activity for kids (and big kids) and you can make it for yourself or as a great gift for a loved one!

All you need is:

1 cereal/pizza box for the base, 

around 4 empty kitchen roll tubes (or you can make rings with other card)

1 newspaper torn into strips around 2cm x 5cm

1 jar of wallpaper paste or other glue

1 sheet of tissue paper
Lots of sweets!!!

You'll need to make it in at least 2 sessions with time to dry in between.

First you need to cut the kitchen rolls into pieces around 2.5cm long, or if you're using card cut strips 2.5cm by 15cm then tape them into a ring. 

TIP: You can make some of the rings bigger if you want to fit some bigger sweets in! :-)

Then arrange your rings onto the base into whatever shape you like then stick them down with some strips of paper and glue/paste. Some good shapes are a christmas tree, snowman, I once even did a VW van for my boyfriend!!

TIP: If you're using wallpaper paste you can clean out a jam jar then fill it with water and add 1 tablespoon of the powder and mix, this way you can store it for weeks!

Keep securing the rings with the strips then cover the gaps in between the rings with strips till it looks a little bit like this:

Cut the base card into the shape you like and you can keep adding paper mache until you get the shape you want.

TIP: You can use pieces of folded card to add extra corners/points or scrunched up paper for balls/curves, just cover it all in a layer of paper mache.

You'll have to leave this to dry for about a day.....which give you plenty of time to buy all the sweets or gifts you can fit into the holes!

TIP: Get a range of sweets so you can fit a few different sweets into every day. You can also put some small gifts in, some good ones are a keyring / jewellery / small toy / money.

When it's dry you can paint inside the different sections or you can get straight to filling the holes with your sweets. Then glue the tissue paper over the top making sure it's stuck all the way around the holes.

Now you can paint and decorate to your hearts content! I like to glue on some glitter and a bit of tinsel for extra sparkle.

Now's the hard bit - wait until December. Then you, or your loved one, can enjoy a totally unique and personalised treat every day!

So Christmas is on it's way and if you're anything like me, you'll be wanting to get into the spirit of things straight away, and there's nothing better than making your own advent calendar!

Like many of us now, I like to get a little treat each day but am bored of the standard piece-of-choc calendars. There is also a crazy amount of sewn advent calendars out there, with pockets that you can fill, but you just don't get the satisfaction of popping open the little box to see what treat is behind.

Also, crafts aren't crafts without getting a but sticky, so I choose papier-mâché! You can also make fun 3D advent calendars this way with some imagination!

I started making papier-mâché advent calendars years and years ago and have made all sorts from pretty 2D shapes to miniature VW vans where the sweets are hidden in the windows and wheels!

They're fun to do, you can make any shape you like and can fit in whatever sweets you like and are also a great way to recycle old cereal boxes and news papers.

Im planning on making bags of them in the next weeks and I'll show you how to make a variety of shapes and sizes.

Of course I appreciate that these guys can take some time, something many of us don't have much of, so I'll also have some extras available for sale, ideal as a gift for a unique person.

Happy mâché-ing!!