Christmas Countdown Advent Calendar Banner

Maya Road | Maya Road

Almost every Christmas I make some kind of banner or Advent Calendar for my home or as a gift for somebody else's home. This year I got tricky and combined the two to make an Advent Calendar for my stair case.

This is the concept. 25 envelopes. 25 little note-cards tucked inside. Each day, your child opens the envelope that coordinates with that day. They open an envelope every day until Christmas and they count down along the way.

Each note card will be a coupon for something that you will give to them. This is not just physical things that you will be giving. It can be activities and time also.

It may be an activity or it may be for a piece of candy.
One coupon might say "Good for one game of your choice"....
or it could say, "Good for a piece of Christmas Candy"..........
or it might just say, "Good for one homework night of Mom reading your reading out loud for you tonight" etc.....
The sky is the limit.
You might even want to put an occasional gift card ($5 to Starbucks goes a long way on the kids $1 drink menu)
or a movie ticket in there.

These were really hard pictures to take and don't do the project justice.

I was originally going to make this into ONE very long banner. But as I started stringing the envelopes onto the wire, it got so long that it was hard to control. So, I decided to make it into 5 mini banners with 5 envelopes each. The envelopes fold over the wire. My girls are 8 and 10 and have no problem opening these envelopes.

The 5 mini banners were
much easier to hang and manage. You can hang them anywhere. They are so light that a tiny nail into the wall will hold them up also. There is always spackle after Christmas, just put it on your "Honey Do List".

Supplies needed-
Maya Road Envelopes- 2 1/2 packs mix of both styles
Kraft Envelopes Square

Kraft Envelopes Rectangular
Paint (I used white, light pink and aqua)
Paint brush
black wire (from the Hardware store)
Fabri-Tac by Beacon Adhesives (fabric Glue)
Lots of numbers (This was great because I used up a TON of my stash)
Christmas paper
Christmas embellishments
Maya Road Red Gingham Ribbon
Ribbon
Tulle
Bakers Twine
Scissors
Paper Trimmer

I did not do a tutorial on this, I already have a ton of pictures to post...and didn't want to load you up with too much! However, here is a quick rundown of what I did.

I painted the edge of the envelopes with one of my 3 colored paints.

Covered it with paper.

Put a number 1-25 on it and then added Christmas embellishments on it. Then I filled the envelope with the daily coupon/card and tied the envelope to the wire. You can also just tie the envelope and then thread the wire underneath the lip of the envelope.