DIY Christmas Countdown and 25 Advent Activities for Your Family

It’s Christmas!  Yay!  And a week or so before Thanksgiving, I like to create an Advent calendar/Christmas countdown to have in our home.  We still do the traditional Advent calendar with the chocolates {it’s a tradition that grandma and grandpa give these to the kids}, but it’s also fun to countdown in a visual way.  So for this year’s Christmas Countdown, we are going the family activity route!

DIY Christmas Countdown Supplies:

16×20 art canvas

Spray Paint

Vinyl

Cardstock or Scrapbook paper

Mini clothespins

Silhouette CAMEO or similar cutting machine

Directions:

Coat the canvas with your color of choice.  I coated mine in black, since I was going to do the “paint, vinyl, paint, peel” method for my letters.  While this is drying, set up your text in the Silhouette design software.

To set up my text, I typed the words “Countdown to Christmas” and played around with fonts until I found the one I liked.  I used Columbus Font for this.  Then, I sized it so it was 18 inches long.  I used my 12×24 cutting mat to cut the letters out.

When the paint is dry, apply a thin coat of Mod Podge were you are going to put the “Countdown to Christmas”.  After this has dried, apply the letters.  Give the whole canvas a good coat of an alternative color of spray paint {I used silver} and let it dry for about 20 minutes.  Gently peel the Countdown to Christmas letters off the canvas and Voila!  In full disclosure, I had to do this twice. The first time, my letters weren’t as crisp as I had hoped they would be, so I repainted my canvas with black, recut the letters, and applied it again.

While the paint is drying, set up a simple shape on your Silhouette software to use as the pieces of your countdown.  I used the gift tag shape that came with my Silhouette Software.  I also used the Columbus font and red vinyl to cut the numbers.  Then, I stuck the numbers on the tags.

On the back of each tag, write a fun family activity to enjoy on the days leading up to Christmas.  First, I went though our family calendar, and wrote the outings we already had planned.  Then, I picked 5 random days to write down “On the “….” day of Christmas, my parents gave to me….”.  On these days, each of our children will receive a book to unwrap.

 

Line up your mini clothes pins evenly across your canvas.  Adhere them to the canvas with hot glue.  I attached my tags to the pins, lined them up how I wanted them, and then started gluing them on.  Mine worked out to be rows of  5, which was perfect.

I am so looking forward to December 1!  I can’t wait to start the countdown in our house, and have fun family activities to look forward to!  Are you counting down to Christmas?