I really wanted to make a calendar we could re-use year after year. Based on a few ideas I saw on the internet and on Etsy, I went with the concept of 24 small bags to fill with treats or prizes of varying sizes.

That’s the beauty of advent calendars, even the most simple design can look beautiful. The Advent calendar I’m sharing today is actually the one I made last year. I’ll post next week about the one I’ve made for this year. (You can interpret that to mean it isn’t quite finished yet and I’m behind schedule for the second year running if you wish. I’m not saying anything!) 😉 This is a really quick and simple way to make an Advent calendar. Read on for the how-to.

You will need:

Brown paper bags (I used plain old sandwich bags from the supermarket)
Ribbon or string for hanging
Decoration you wish to use
Permanent marker (to write the numbers on the bags)
Contents for the bags (It’s a personal choice as to what you put inside the bags.)
Scissors
Glue
2 wood sticks

Prepare your bags.

I folded my bags down to a smaller width. This was purely for design, and to be honest, it is entirely unnecessary. They just looked so much nicer that way. I turned the bags over so the “seam” of the bag would be on the back and then folded about 1.5 inches in on each side. I glued down the flaps, and voila! A nice narrow bag that I had searched high and low for but couldn’t find anywhere.

Fill the bags.

Our bags are a mixture of ornaments for the tree, small treats like chocolate or jelly beans, small gifts such as stickers or crayons, and notes with a suggested Christmas activity such as “stay up late and watch a Christmas movie.”

Hang the bags.

You can use ribbon, or string, baker’s twine, fishing wire, anything at all that you have on hand.

And that’s it! Simple simple. From start to finish, creating 24 bags took me about three hours. The beauty of this calendar is that it’s recyclable.