
First of all, I have to apologize for these absolutely awful photos! Ugh! What can I do?, it's late, it's the darkest season of the year, I have no energy to put more time into making the photos right, so here it is.
The important thing is that after years of wanting to make an advent calendar for my boys, I finally did it! I had a small window today between my teaching and picking the boys of from school to do it. I furiously painted paper tubes willing them to dry so I could assemble the piece before school ended. They were BEYOND excited when they saw this hanging in the dining room. The kisses and hugs and thank yous I received were far beyond the gratitude I would have ever expected from them.
Advent calendars were not part of my tradition growing up, but it's hard to be involved in the on line craft world and not be exposed to the many, many wonderful varieties of advent calendar ideas to create. Oh the possibilities!
The paper tube advent calendar is not my original idea but there were several different blogs that had posted a tutorial and I just didn't feel like researching who came up with the idea first. I put my own spin on it anyway. One person tried stapling the tubes together, another tried tying and a third went with hot glue. I wanted my calendar to have a "big reveal" at the end as you check off the days, I wanted to be able to spin the tubes...so I attached them together placing a large brass brad in between to connect them.

Each day, as we get one day closer to Christmas, the boys get their surprise and spin the tube until the tree is revealed. My paint job is a bit crude and hurried but it is effective and has brought so much joy to the season for my guys.



Happy First Day of December!! Cheers and blessings on the season! xx