Fairy Light Advent Calendar Tree

For the last few years, we’ve had a lovely wooden advent calendar where we hid sweets and chocolates for the children alongside stickers and more healthy options like raisins. They’ve taken it turns to come down in the morning to discover the treats! Alongside this, my mum bought us a gorgeous Nativity Calendar to help the children remember the real meaning of Christmas, they love adding the characters to the Nativity Stable, starting with the animals and shepherds and leading up adding Baby Jesus.

However, now that we have 4 children and 3 that will be opening the advent calendar this year, I was finding it a struggle to fit anything in our wooden calendar. I’d love to think they’d all share a chocolate but it just doesn’t quite happen! I also wanted to add little notes in other things like colouring pencils, but these wouldn’t fit in any regular advent calendar – however hard I tried! So, I decided to make my own.

First, I spray painted our old wooden tree that had become tatty and unloved with Pinty Plus Spray Paint to make our new Fairylight Advent Calendar Tree. I started with the chalk paint white and finished with the Silver so that it didn’t look too shiny. I love that it still has a sparkle about it though!

Next, I added brown paper boxes and bags that I found in Sainsburys and Hema. I added decorations to some of the bags, such as spray painted wooden snowflakes which I sprayed in Pinty Plus Chalk White and Copper metallic paint. I played around with some stencils and gold and copper paint too, it was a shame I had not remembered to check the way the wind was blowing before I sprayed! But I can confirm that Pintyplus makes an excellent nail varnish too! I tied mini clay numbers which I made a few weeks ago. I simply used a mini star cutter and printed the number stamps onto the clay after I had sprayed them white. The clay was white but had dried a funny grey colour, so I re-sprayed.

Lastly, I tied the packages and parcels to the Fairylight Advent Calendar Tree and used decorated brown paper envelopes for things like stickers and some Christmas Colouring pages. The fairylights I added were mini wire ones which added the final touch of sparkle.

When the children came home to it after swimming, it was dark so it was a perfect time to showcase our Fairy Light Advent Tree Calendar. They loved it! Now, I am just going to have a job to get them to keep their hands off before the Advent Season starts!