This is extremely quick and easy to make countdown calendar.

Last year I spent two evenings wrapping each gift in pages from old London A-Z so this year I wanted to go for something less time consuming, especially that I had to make two calendars. Similar to last year, where I separated two boxes of Lego into 24 portions each for my girls, we decided to pack something other than sweets.

Each of the 24 packets contains mini craft set, for instance: beads with cord to make bracelet, plain Christmas bauble with papers to decorate it etc. I actually made couple extra bags so they could start crafting straight away. I will reveal more shortly… but from 1st of December we will be posting daily content of the bags on Instagram so don’t forget to follow us if you are curious what is inside…

MATERIALS

• cork memo board (on hand, we painted ours red a while ago for the kitchen)
• 24 paper candy bags (less than £2 per 100) / paper coffee filters would work here as well
• 24 ready push pins or if you have time – DIY glass thumb tacks
• 24 little gifts (you can find some ideas on how to fill countdown calendars here)
• mini wooden pegs with numbers from 1 to 24 – optional (numbers can be written on the bags and bags closed with the push pins)

for the glass thumb tacks

• clear glass nuggets
• thumb tacks or plain flat pins
• wrapping paper to decorate
• paper glue
• all purpose glue

METHOD

1. To make the pushpins use paper glue to stick pebbles onto the paper.
2. Cut them out and then use all purpose glue to stick the pins.

CALENDAR FILLERS – CRAFTY MINI SETS IDEAS

Below you can see what we actually had in the calendars this year… daily updates can be found for the next 24 days every morning on our Instagram and later in the evening here, stay tuned!

1. pom pom pencil toppers
2. button gift tags
3. wooden bead doll bracelet (for the 5 year old one) & macrame bracelet with cat’s eye beads (for the bigger one)
4. wooden peg people / Santas
5. découpage baubles
6. DIY hair ties with pom-poms, buttons and embellishments
7. nutshell crafts 
8. pom-pom creatures / Santas
9. felt Christmas tree ornaments / gingerbread men
10. dot art coasters
11. clothes peg dolls
12. yarn baubles / balloon ball
13. felt Christmas tree ornaments / stockings
14. pom-pom creatures / bugs
15. decorated paper clips
16. felt Christmas tree ornaments / squirrels or foxes (not sure)
17. pipe cleaner and bead animals
18. acrylic or glass pebble crafts – badges / brooches
19. felt finger puppets
20. play dough / modeling clay creatures
21. yarn baubles / wire heart
22. DIY hair clips with felt, pom-poms, buttons and embellishments
23. laundry peg caterpillars
24. pasta butterflies and other pasta crafts

I also prepared plain cardboard box (which I decorated with wrapping paper and glitter) with all tools and additional items they will need: scissors, needles, brushes, acrylic paints, varnish, glitter, threads, glue, tape etc.

more ideas to try

• button bracelets – yarn and buttons or even cord alone for friendship bracelets
• Hama bead crafts – animal magnets, fruity magnets, coasters, snowflake decorations, angel ornaments – beads, boards + magnets if needed
• enamel dots crafts
• mini clipboards, decorated pencils and other stationer items to decorate
• decorated boxes (plain small boxes plus paper and glitter to decorate)
• painting rocks (stones, markers, paint)
• dot art pebbles
• felt food

NOTES

If you find that craft every single day for 24 days is a bit too much, let kids save some of the crafty sets for later, they will come very handy during holidays when they will have lots of free time on their hands. My girls are keeping up so far, except for one bag (from the 7th) that we did not get around to do it, yet.

Some more quick and easy projects can be found in our 30 Minutes Crafts section or in Winter Holidays – Crafts for Kids article.

More countdown calendar ideas from previous years.

More craft ideas.

More seasonal articles.

More paper crafts.

More ideas for Christmas & New Year.

Couple creative gift wrapping ideas.

DISCLOSURE: This post contains some affiliated links.