advent boxes from last years cards

Well, so much for being well ahead and organised for the pre Christmas rush this year! No, hang on, I am organised but certainly not ahead of schedule as you can see. These lovely glittery little parcels are our advent calendar this year and while the boxes were made by some of my children a month ago, their over-worked mother didn't get any goodies for inside them, until yesterday! Oh and I had to find and print some corny jokes as well! I love them and the children humour me!! 

So this morning was spent filling and adding a bit of bling to 24 little boxes made from old Christmas cards - I wanted to tell you all about this ahead of Advent but good plans often go astray….sigh. And then I wanted to quickly link to a tutorial for making the boxes but it was not to be. I couldn't find a nice and easy one without a lot of pesky measuring - so I enlisted the help of one of the girls and we made our own tute!! 

Tutorial - how to make recycled Advent boxes!! 

I won't go into detail about materials needed (see above) 

Cut the card in half along the spine. On the writing part of the card, make a mark approximately 5mm along the long edge and a bit more, maybe 8mm,  along the shorter edge and cut along the lines to make it smaller. This is to enable the base of the box to fit into the lid. 

Measure carefully from corner to corner and draw a line to make a cross on both cards. 

Now fold both short sides so that the edge meets up with the centre of the cross. 

Do the same with the long edges. 

Now cut along the fold on all the short sides of the card (not the short fold) until you get to the line. 

Im not going to try and explain this next bit because I'm sure you should be able to see whats going on in the photo but there is a bit of folding along previous folds as well as another new fold over the top at the ends. 

Do the same with the lid section.

We staple the sides with the sharp bits facing in (yes, I know this lid is not done like that….. what can I say?…. a kid made it!) but you could try gluing if you don't like staples. 

And viola! a nice neat little container to put all sorts of deliciousness in! (and if you are one of my younger children, please don't look at any further pics or you won't get a surprise!) 

We have a very cheap little op shop here in the village and they have lots of Christmassy stuff for sale from November on, so I was fortunate enough to find lots of rolls of half used glittery packing type ribbon to tie this lot up with. Do excuse the very stained and ratty tablecloth that is being held up here by two unwilling helpers just out of the picture - I only noticed what they'd used when I put the pics on the computer.

So there you have a nice easy way to make little boxes. Years ago we used to make them to hold all sorts of little hand made gifts for friends, using old birthday cards but sadly, children grow up and old ways are forgotten. Now they want to buy gifts!

I hope you give these a try with any little people in your life!

Here is last years Advent wreath and here you will find the one from the year before.

And when I went a bit further back into the archives, I found this one as well (with a very much younger Fairy!)

I'm linking this to Creative Friday at Natural Suburbia (even though its Monday!!)

And I've also linked to Artist Trading Post Exchange where you will find other great ideas for recycling for Christmas, and at Frontier Dreams with Keep Calm Craft On.


Ich bin schon wieder spät mit unser Advent Kalender. Die Kinder haben schon seit längere zeit die kleine schachteln gebastelt aber erst heute Kamm ich dazu sie aufzufüllen! Von alte Weihnachtskarten, sie sind sehr schnell zum herstellen und immer sehr beliebt von groß und klein!