DIY Advent Calendar Village

What an exciting project we made for this holiday! A super adorable advent calendar village that even the adults want one for themselves!  In this village set, we have designed a bakery (a must), a library, a post office, a flower shop and a bonus boba tea shop!  Each house is numbered (1 to 24) so everyday starting December is a treat day!

Advent calendar brings back so many fond memories of my own childhood.  When I was in grade 5, the whole class would gather around our class advent calendar and the teacher would draw a student’s name out of the box to open the “door” and get the treat inside.  Then the following year, I asked my mom to buy me a small advent calendar all to myself.  I can’t remember if the treats were good, but the joy of opening a mystery door is way more exciting than anything else.

The inspiration of this advent calendar village is from subscribers like you.  We did a survey in June to ask every subscriber what he or she likes about Juju Sprinkles and one of the topics that kept showing up is paper crafts!  I was elated to hear that because paper crafts is my all time favorite hobby.   This means now I have a very legitimate reason to make crafts!

We made several mockups to optimize the cutout template because a good template will save you time to cut, glue and assemble, especially if you are making 24 of them!  After testing, we came up with this template that opens from the bottom and is the easiest to cut and assemble.  To make 24 houses, it will take you around 2.5 to 3 hours.  If you have friends who love crafting, why not invite them over for a fun advent calendar crafting session before the holidays?

 

Tools you will need

⭕ Paper for color printing (we recommend a thicker paper stock like 60lb or 24lb)

⭕ Scissors

⭕ Glue

⭕ Things for stuffing

What you can fill in these boxes

The bottom can opened and filled with all kinds of treats. In the pictures, we filled them with Trader Joe’s almond butter cups.  Here are some fun ideas to try.  You can mis them up for more surprises.

⭕ Treats like Hershey’s kisses, Starburst, chocolate coins, Ferrero Rocher and many more

⭕ Small notes of gratitude, acts of kindness and holiday quotes

⭕ Small toys like marbles, lego figures, cars and pieces of a puzzle

⭕ Holiday stickers

How to set up your village

Our template includes gingerbread man, Santa and Christmas trees to decorate.  For the final look in our picture, we pulled apart a few cotton balls to make it look like a snowy village and added white felt as a base.  But you can use any Christmas decor you have at home like Christmas ornaments, acorns, branches, or Christmas lights to decorate the village.  The numbers are labeled on one side of each house.  You can display the houses with the numbered side, or pick the side of the house that you like the most.

You can reuse these template year after year.  If people like these, we will create more cool add-ons (like my boba tea shop) to make this become a real fun tradition around Christmas.

More holiday posts you will love!

Christmas Holiday Planner

Fruit Bouquet Centerpiece

New Year’s Goal Printable

Planner schedule labels

Thank you for taking the time to read my post.  Leave a comment or share it with others that will enjoy it as well.

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