Christmas Craft #1 - Book Advent Calender and morning board

You might have guessed it already, but we're big on books.

I forget where I first saw the idea of the 'book a day' advent calendar, but it's been niggling away at me for an entire year and finally, I get to do it!

It's exactly as it sounds - I went round the house in the summer (when the books wouldn't be missed) and collected all the Christmas/Winter titles that I came across. I think I managed 20 in total, then bought the rest from the local charity shop for 50p a tome, making the total cost of the calendar £2. Since I'm going to do this for a good few years, I think that's an acceptable price - especially as I plan to put the books away again after the festivities are over and reuse those which are still age-appropriate next year. I think - all being well - I should only have to replace one this time around.


In any case, last year when we tried the chocolatey variety of advent calendar, Daughter really took umbrage to the fact that advent ended on the 24th. She wanted to go on getting a present a day... as you would. So, forewarned is forearmed and this time, I decided to introduce a morning-board as well. It made a funny sort of sense to me that since we were starting to count days anyway, we might as well introduce other calendar elements too. This way, come the 25th, she'll still have at least part of her little morning ritual.

I started off by crocheting some simple weather symbols, using a free online pattern and some yarn oddments. Then I got the very talented Blissful Baby Gifts to machine embroider the words and numbers for the board on some felt. These are absolutely gorgeous - the colours are so pretty and the stitching is perfect. Daughter's face - as you can see above - when she opened the little package was a picture. All I did then was attack the pieces with some super-glue and some cheap, ebay magnets... the rest is just a case of arranging things on any metallic surface.

So far, the novelty of coming downstairs to change the date in a morning hasn't worn off and Daughter's beginning to learn the days of the week. Good job all round, then.

And from a purely selfish point of view, I'm having a lot of fun reliving my favourite childhood books from this festive time of year.

Anyone else remember the Summer Snowman? No? Just me then...