ADVENT CALENDAR IDEAS I'M LOVING (Please excuse the full urls but Typepad has a bug and none of my links are working).
I'm a sucker for cute advent ideas. What I love even more are super easy and simple and basic advent ideas. I also love traditions but there are so many super adorable ideas out there as well as products, I can't seem to stick to one idea year after year. So not only can't I stick to a tradition, it also means we usually have more than one calendar going at the same time.
Over kill? Likely. Over indulgent? Probably. Fun? Absolutely! So why not? You only live once.
This year I am keeping it simple and using a pop-up calendar by Eric Carle, but I still love the following ideas, and wish I and been prepared enough to do them this year:
Elf Countdown (http://tarawhitney.com/justbeblogged/2010/12/bernard-the-christmas-elf/) This one is really involved but is so cute and adorable, I just had to feature it. We had an elf visit in our house one year - we followed the Elf on the Shelf model (google it as I don't have a link), but this idea is absolutely adorable too. I love the letter idea. The year we did it our elf left notes too and our kids loved searching for the elf every day. The only problem with using the elf doll (elf on the shelf includes an elf doll that hides in a different location everyday) is my kids were very disappointed when they found out it was 'just a doll'. They were 8, 6 & 2 at the time. The letters alone makes it more magical for all ages becasue there is always a question if maybe it is really and elf for those little ones that still want to believe.
I saw this over on www.gogovivi.com 's blog, a fellow expat in China. She gives some detailed photos of how she did it. It is adorable and unique.
Mitten Advent Calendar
I read about this some time ago on Lain Ehmann's blog - I'm not sure which one, either scraphappy.org or layoutaday.com. You simply find 24 small mittens and string them up on raffia using little clothes pins. If I had found the right mittens this year, I was going to make this to give as a gift. I think it would be so simple to stitch on or glue with fabric glue some cute felt letters and maybe add some glitter too depending upon your mittens. This one takes the cake for being uber simple and uber cute! I'm keeping my eyes open for super cute mittens so I can do this one next year.
I should also mention that WriteClickScrapbook.com has a post dedicated to very cute advent calendar ideas which also includes a Linky to readers' homemade advent calendar projects.
#Reverb10 Thoughts
I do plan to participate in #Reverb10 but have decided to do it privately and not post on my blog. Thanks for stopping by if you were looking for a #Reverb10 - sorry to disappoint.
The elf countdown is really fab, thanks for sharing :)
Posted by: Rachel B | December 03, 2010 at 00:50