For advent this year I decided I wanted to do something a little bit different. A bite size chocolate a day wasn’t going to cut it. I love Christmas and I genuinely do love giving gifts and spreading good cheer as much as I like receiving the things on my list come December 25th, so I decided I’d get a bit creative and make an advent calendar for Matt. I ended up spending around £50 in total on the advent calendar, which may seem a bit pricey considering Christmas is coming up, but you can easily easily make it cheaper or more expensive to suit your budget.

I got my shoe rack for just under £5 from eBay. I bought from this ebay seller. The delivery was fast and the shoe rack is fairly low quality, but for what I want it to do that’s fine. It’s a thin, hardish fabric, which is actually pretty good because the pockets keep their shape.

I had planned on making my own number signs for each pocket, but when it came to it I didn’t have time or patience to sit down to draw and cut them out. So, obviously, I headed straight to Pinterest. The amount of crafty amazingness on Pinterest is off the scale. It’s basically (and I don’t mean this in a derogatory way at all, part of me aspires to be one) a whole lot of American mums with their very own craft rooms who spend their time thinking up amazing stuff for their kids. I searched for “homemade advent calendar” and was met with a whole page of inspirational pictures and free printables. I used these free printables and just printed straight from my desk and cut them out.

I bought a packet of tiny coloured wooden pegs from Wilkinson which cost somewhere around a pound and clipped the numbers on to the pockets. Next was filling the pockets. I mainly put in Christmas themed chocolates: gold coins, mini santas, snowmen, his favourite chocolate bar (a Twirl), Wham bars, Lindt teddies etc. However, I dotted the pockets with bigger gifts like skin and haircare items, a personalised mug, a mix-tape themed pack of cards, and some wooly socks. As this is also our first Christmas together I dotted the calendar with Christmas decorations (3 for 2 in Paperchase). When the gifts were all in, I topped each pocket with tissue paper I had lying around from other gifts I’d sent.

And so my advent calendar is complete! You may have noticed that your average shoe rack only has 20 pockets. Luckily for Matt and I this works out fine because we leave our flat to see our families before Christmas itself. But you could easily get a few extra gifts for the last four days of advent and either replace the first row once you reach December 5th, or just cover them in tissue paper and leave them at the foot of the calendar.

I realise this is an indepth how-to for something that’s quite self-explanatory, but the thing is, I’m so proud of the way it looks and in a small flat it’s a really great way to make things a little more festive. I think it’s a really personal and thoughtful gift too and I intend on making one every year from now on!

Watch out for more Homemade Christmas posts coming.