Home Made Advent Calendars

Advent calendars are brilliant for counting down the days to Christmas. Every morning you have the fun of finding the next door and seeing what's hiding behind it. Chocolate calendars are very nice with a chocolate treat behind each door. You could make your own calendar. The best thing about making your own calendar is that you can put your favourite thing behind each door, or perhaps you could put the gifts you are most wanting Santa to bring you behind each door. All you need is... Felt tip pens, paints or pencils, PVA glue, thin card or stiff paper, magazines and catalogues and two print outs from the Santa's Postbag website, the link is below. You need a calendar front and a calendar back. Take the 'back' print out, it is covered in 25 squares. Each square corresponds with a door on the front print out. Cut out pictures from the magazines and catalogues and stick them onto the squares. Don't worry if the pictures hang out of the boxes a little, it wont bee seen later. Leave this to one side to dry. There is a choice of two print outs for the calendar front. There is a Santa calendar and a Rudolf one. Print one out and colour or paint the picture on the front of the calendar. If you choose to paint it, you will need to let it dry out before you continue. The front of the calendar needs to be stuck to thin card or stiff paper. Sugar paper would be ideal. Cover the whole of the sheet in a thin layer of PVA glue, and stick on to the card or paper. Allow to dry. Each door on the front of the calendar needs cutting. You need to be very careful, and cut 3 sides of each square. The doors could open to the left or to the right, or upwards or downwards, whatever way you choose. To cut the doors is a bit tricky and younger children may need an adults help. Put a ball of plasticine or Blu-Tack on the table, and place your picture on top of it where you want to make the hole, at a corner of a square would be good. Push a pencil through the paper and into the Blu-Tack or plasticine. This will give you a hole to get the scissors into to cut the door. Cut around all 25 doors. Stick the calendar front to the back (The sheet with the magazine pictures stuck to it) Making sure that you can see the pictures when the doors are opened. Leave the calendar somewhere to dry. On the first of December you an open the first door of the advent calendar, the door with number one on it. Open one door every day. The morning that you open door number 25 will be Christmas Day, when we celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ. About the Author: S. Roberts has many Christmas craft ideas which can been seen at http://www.santaspostbag.co.uk for printable advent calendars visit http://www.santaspostbag.co.uk/homemade-advent-calendar-to-make.html Santas Postbag is in association with http://www.bigboystoyz.com Keeping Christmas Magical Read more articles by: S. Roberts Article Source: www.iSnare.com Share: Del.icio.us Digg Reddit

Decorated Candles

Posh candles can be rather expensive, but they can really add some glamour to a room. Household candles are really cheap but look drab. Have you ever thought of making your own posh candles from cheap drab candles? It's really easy and they make perfect gifts. All you need is... Some flowers, leaves, confetti, sequins, beads, cheap household candles, hot water and greaseproof paper. The flowers, leaves and any other greenery need to be pressed. To do this, simply place the flowers and leaves between sheets of newspaper and put this between the pages of a big book. Put it somewhere flat and stack other heavy books of top of it. If a week they should be pressed enough to work with. Take a piece of greaseproof paper, it doesn't need to be very wide, just enough to wrap around the candle a couple of times. Arrange the candle decorations (leaves, flowers, beads, confetti, sequins and other bits and bobs) on the greaseproof paper. Don't put on too many and don't overlap them too much. There is only candle wax to stick it to the candle. Put the candle on top of the decorations. Roll the candle up in the paper so that all the decorations are in direct contact with the candle. Twist the ends of the paper to keep the candle tightly wrapped. It will look a bit like a long thin Christmas cracker. You will need a container that is as tall as the candle and which can hold boiling water. A plastic jug would do. Fill the jug with boiling water. Taking great care, hold your candle at the top or the wick end, lower the candle parcel into the water so that all the decorations are under the water line. Hold it there for about 20 seconds. Take the candle parcel out and wrap it up in a towel. Roll the sausage of towel and candle parcel back and forth as if it were a rolling pin. Do this for about 20 seconds. Carefully unwrap the candle from the towel and from the greaseproof paper. Finally holding the wick, dunk the candle in the hot water for 5 seconds or so. This smoothes the surface and applies a thin layer of wax over the design to fix it into place. Hold the candle by the wick and give it a minute or so for the wax to cool and harden before setting it down and to not alter the shape. Easy! About the Author: S. Roberts is one of Santa’s Helpers and writes for http://www.santaspostbag.co.uk a Christmas educational & activity website. For more fun stuff ideas visit http://www.santaspostbag.co.uk/christmas-fun-stuff.html SantasPostbag is in association with http://www.bigboystoyz.com Read more articles by: S. Roberts Article Source: www.iSnare.com Share: Del.icio.us Digg Reddit