Advent calendars to fill

Discover the best ideas for DIY Advent calendars to fill for children. Includes a free craft template for your homemade Advent calendar.

Advent calendar made from toilet rolls

An Advent calendar doesn’t always have to be a lot of faff. We’ve come up with an idea for which you’re bound to have everything you need at home. Well, you’ll probably need to collect toilet rolls for a while first. Or you could just ask your neighbours and friends. Then you can get started straight away!

What you’ll need:

Craft template for a toilet roll Advent calendar (see below)
24 toilet rolls or kitchen roll tubes cut into small pieces,
elastic bands or adhesive tape,
IKEA KNAGGLIG small box (23x31x15cm)

Here’s how to do it:

Download the craft template and print it out in colour. Now cut out the 24 circles and slip them over the openings of the toilet roll tubes. You can secure the paper circles either with a rubber band, adhesive tape or colourful washi tape. You can then fill the rolls and place them in the KNAGGLIG box. Your DIY Advent calendar is now ready.

Download a craft template for a DIY Advent calendar

Free download

Filling an Advent calendar

The tubes can be filled with lots of lovely little treats. For example, small cuddly toys or finger puppets, toy cars, vouchers, hair accessories, bubble blowers or even the odd sweet treat.

Either your little ones can take the filled tubes out of the box to see what’s inside, or they can simply tear open the paper. We think the latter is much more fun ;)

Elf as an alternative to an Advent calendar

Have you heard of the ‘ elf’? The ‘ elf’ is the little helper of Father Christmas and the Christ Child, and he builds up a great sense of anticipation for Christmas. At night, he sneaks out of his ‘ elf door’ and enchants your home with Christmas preparations. But he’s also a bit of a rascal and loves to play pranks that’ll make your children laugh. Always creative and charming, of course. 24 days full of magic!

Elf discover

More ideas for filling Advent calendars

DIY Advent calendar with the IKEA MOPPE

The

IKEA MOPPE Mini chest of drawers is the perfect storage for all sorts of bits and bobs on your desk or in the children’s bedroom.

But the little compartments are also ideal for filling as an Advent calendar. If you stick some blackboard foil on them, you can write four numbers on each of the little drawers. This means there’s room for 24 little parcels in this DIY IKEA Advent calendar.

Making a wooden Advent calendar

If you enjoy craft projects, you can also make your own DIY wooden Advent calendar. To do this, screw wooden planks together to form a frame, stretch wires or strings between the frame and hang the 24 little parcels inside. A DIY Advent calendar that you can fill yourself and reuse next year.

An IKEA Advent calendar with a twist

We think this idea for a fill-your-own Advent calendar is particularly cute. The IKEA FLISAT doll’s house has simply been repurposed as a DIY Advent calendar.

The 24 presents are simply wrapped up nicely, labelled with numbers and placed inside the little ‘ dollhouse’. A string of fairy lights and a foil sheet for the ‘ back side’ on the IKEA doll’s house create the perfect cosy atmosphere. And after 24 December, the little house can be used to play with dolls again.