Christmas crafts - A DIY advent calendar!

A few weeks ago I decided that I'd start a craft project for one of my boyfriend's Christmas presents. We're in a long distance relationship so I wanted to give him a present that'd keep him feeling Christmassy while he was still stuck away at uni. Finally it is finished and here are a few shots of my homemade advent calendar along the way. I've told him not to peek at this until he unwraps it tomorrow!

I started off by collecting 25 sweets that I knew he loved. The good thing about making him a chocolate advent calendar was being able to pick all his favourites!

Then I worked out which presents were going to be for which days. I went from small parcels at the start of the month and naturally left the biggest for Christmas day! I simply cut down normal parcel labels to mark them with the day.

I tried to make the wrapping special to make it hard to guess the contents and to give him something to unwrap every day. Here I used a mini cracker making set to cleverly conceal some treats!

I sometimes used things that he could keep and re-use, like this mini stocking decoration that I filled with sweets.

I suppose the only really crafty element was the wrapping so I tried to have fun with it...

I stuck a robin on one of his presents.

And I drew him a little striped Christmas cat!

Nearly everything was wrapped in tissue paper because it worked better with the slightly awkward shapes of some of the gifts.

When everything was complete/ I popped it all in a box...

And sealed it up ready for December 1st! While I am giving this to him at the start of the month, I'm sure that gathering 25 little treats would make a good themed gift on the day itself too.I'm really excited to see what he thinks and I hope that he enjoys it all the way through to Christmas day. Fingers crossed!