P's birthday was a few days before Thanksgiving and this year I had no idea what to give him. Then it hit me, why not take him out to dinner at Peter Luger, something that was on our list for years. I made a reservation and crafted a gift card but still needed a good idea how to wrap it in a cute way. Because I was able to get a reservation for December 1st I thought giving him the dinner as part of an advent calendar would be fun. With only a couple of day lefts to finish the advent calendar I went to The Container Store for some inspiration and quickly found the kraft paper coffee bags. Initially I wanted to write numbers on them but then I found these tree gift tags and an idea was born. The bags were so easy to make, I just used doubled sided tape to add the trees to the bags. All in all it took maybe half an hour to finish the calendar. As the bags are pretty sturdy I will be able to reuse them in the next years, they would also make cute gift wrapping for smaller items or cookies. Most of the bags are filled with chocolate, some contain messages on these dry erase bubble magnets and some contain wooden animals. I thought the animals would go very well with the woodsy theme of the calendar and look cute if they were added one by one to the "forest on the mantle.
Do you have an advent calendar or made one for a special person in your life?
PS. In case you are wondering
but this post has not been sponsored by The Container Store, I was on
crutches and was only able to visit one store so I needed to choose wisely ;)
PPS. No need to worry P does not read the blog and I won't spoil it for him with this post...
This is such a gorgeous project! Really lovely and what a great gift! Cal has had an advent calendar since he was a baby that was gifted to him by a friend. It has pockets for gifts, and quite honestly, filling it (which falls to me) is a huge pain in the butt! ;) The things we do, right? Because we'd been traveling, we didn't hang it until the night of the 3rd, so he had four pockets of stuff to gather. SCORE!
ReplyDeleteHa, I always loved it to be able to open more than one pocket of my calendar. If I go home for Christmas my mom still fills the calendar I had as a little girl.
DeleteYou are a trooper for not only braving the Container Store (mecca!! I could spend HOURS in there!) on crutches, but for pulling together such an awesome and thoughtful advent calendar in a pinch. It looks amazing. And I did laugh a bit at P not reading your blog, because J doesn't read mine either unless I specifically tell him to check out a post, which is rare (but even then, I can't be sure he reads :). Does it matter if the bags are opened in a particular order? I never know with proper advent calendars! I never had one. xo
ReplyDeleteI could spend hours at Container Store as well, always think I need everything to get organized and such. J sounds a bit like P, I have him sometimes spell check my posts and those are usually the ones with the most typos ;) With the calendar I created P can pick a bag at random every day, sometimes people add numbers so you have to open the present on a certain day. xo
Deleteoh i love it on your mantel that just looks so beautiful! i completely slacked on the advent this year. oh, well, i guess i will just have to come up with something extra, extra amazing next year. this is a great idea, i may just borrow this one :) xo
ReplyDeleteYou can totally borrow this idea, as I said in the post it was super easy and quick to make. I love when a last minute idea works out. xo
Deleteso adorable with the trees.
ReplyDeleteAwww, this is so terribly sweet and thoughtful
ReplyDeleteThanks rooth!
DeleteOK, now I want to go to Peter Luger, too! I just read about tthe restaurant earlier today in the latest issue of Bon Appetit! How did you like it? Happy belated birthday to P!
ReplyDeleteIt was delicious! We had the bacon as an appetizer and then the steak for two with creamed spinach and German fried potatoes. I'd definitely eat there again. You have to come to NY again!
DeleteSo cute! Love that you made this for him. I made a calendar for me :) from match boxes when I was a kid.
ReplyDeleteI like the tree cards a lot.
Thanks Leena! Next year I'll make a calendar for myself as well, I miss getting a treat each morning :)
DeleteThis website certainly has all of the info I wanted concerning this subject and didn't know who to ask.
ReplyDeleteAlso visit my webpage; calculatoare sh