I had the idea for this last year – a bunting style advent calendar where each triangle is a pocket that you put your own sweet or toy in – but with a 4 month old to contend with it just didn't happen. This year I had the best of intentions, I really wanted to make it in fabric (and one day i will!) but in true make-do style I've made it with what I have to hand to get it ready for the beginning of December. Check out the other thrifty Christmas ideas over at Violet Posy - the plum vodka sounds especially good.
There are also more ideas for 'Festive Fayre' over at Thinly Spread.
For this paper version I used the equivalent of 3 A2 sheets of paper. Use whatever you like: old wrapping paper, magazine pages - for this I got K to 'decorate' some old paper. (Stupidly I did this just after she'd had a bath and in a brand new t-shirt, but at least we were in the bathroom to do the painting so it wasn't too hard to clean up).
Cut 24 shapes using this template. Resize it if you like - I've made it big enough to fit in a wrapped sweet or small toy. The quickest way is to fold your paper several times, draw round the template on the top and cut through all the layers at once. If you are using fabric don't bother with the flap.
Get pieces of ribbon or binding (or in my case a shredded carrier bag, well I couldn't find any ribbon...) and attach the triangles along it sticking or sewing the front side and leaving the back open to allow you to put the gift in.
Number your triangles with pen or stick on numbers like the ones I've added at the bottom of this post and you are ready to fill it and hang it up!
If anyone tries this in fabric please let me know how it goes. I think it would look great in something like this with the numbers painted onto big buttons and sewn on...
Image & fabric from http://ldsfabric.com/
