Antique Picture Frame Advent Calendar

Today, we’re sharing how to make an antique picture frame advent calendar. This is one of those quick and easy projects you can create with just a few simple supplies from the craft store and a beautiful antique picture frame in no time.

Over the years we’ve made a concerted effort to not only celebrate the holidays but to also celebrate the season of Advent. In the past, we’ve made branches of appreciation where we wrote something we liked, loved or appreciated about each other.

My favorite (up until this one) was “The Say Yes” advent calendar where every day there was a new prompt to perform an act of kindness for someone else or to do something that would push you slightly out of your comfort zone. These ideas ranged from invite a new co-worker to lunch to take the kids on the Santa Train.

Last year, while I was busy finishing up The Horse Farm project, my bestie S not only took over the blog for the day she also created her own farmhouse inspired advent calendar. These little bags were filled with all kinds of stuff from ice skating adventure tickets to no-pull hair bands.

As some of you may know, this year has thrown us for a big loop given S’s accident. Our original plans were to celebrate Thanksgiving at the cabin and then enjoy a ski vacation for Christmas with my family. Both events were something we’ve been looking forward to all year and I would be lying if I said we weren’t heartsick to have to miss them.

While this past month has been extremely difficult at times, it’s also been filled with the kind of love and generosity and grace that still gets me all teary whenever I think about it. It’s with this in mind, our advent calendar is dedicated to you guys and all the people that have shown up for us in a big way when we needed it most.

Here’s a look at how we created our antique picture frame advent calendar….

Antique Picture Frame Advent Calendar Supplies:

• Large picture frame
• Ribbon
• Paper Gift Tags
• Number Stickers
• Tiny Clothespins
• Scissors
• Staple Gun with Staples
• Tape Measure or Ruler
• Ink Pen or Markers
• Ornaments (optional)

Antique Picture Frame Advent Calendar Steps:

Step 1 – Make sure your picture frame is clean and free from dirt or debris. Flip the frame over to the back and measure the width of the frame, this will let you know how long you need to cut your ribbon.

Step 2 – Using caution and care as scissors will be sharp, cut pieces of ribbon the width of your antique picture frame. We cut 5 pieces of ribbon, so we could place 5 gift tags on each row.

Step 3 – Using caution and care as staples will be sharp, staple the ribbon onto the back of your picture frame. I placed each ribbon (row) about 4 ½ inches apart.

Step 4 – Once you have the ribbon secured to the antique picture frame,

apply the sticker numbers 1-25 (I know some people like to only go up to 24 which is totally ok too) to each gift tag.

You can easily attach the gift tags to the rows of ribbon with tiny clothespins.

Step 5 – What you decide to do the on back of the gift tags is completely up to you. You can write a message to your loved ones each day, you can surprise the littles with fun events, create a scavenger hunt, add extra ornaments write an inspiring affirmation, scriptures or quotes – it’s totally up to you.

We wrote all the names of the people that had impacted us with their kindness and encouragement from the doctor who performed a successful surgery to all of you!

If you left us a message on the blog or on any of our social media channels, your name or your handle is on one of these gift tags.

Step 6 – Most advent calendars are filled with some kind of note, candy or treat and you can definitely still do that with this calendar. We’ve decided to hang the tags on the tree as ornaments which means every day from December 1 to December 25, your names will decorate the tree.

Given we’ll unexpectedly be at home this year, we’re making every effort to make the house and our Christmas experiences as festive as possible.

Sure, we have to have to groceries delivered, thankfully all the gifts can be ordered online and as people get busier with the holiday season there are some weeks the only people we see are the surgeon, his staff and the wheelchair transportation company that drives us to his office.

There is nothing ideal about this situation or how we’ll be celebrating the holidays.

Yet as we enter this season of Advent, the season of hope, we know the gifts we’ve needed most have already been given to us. We’ve had comfort and joy, love and grace, encouragement and kindness, and during the hardest nights, we’ve had stars shining brightly.

And most of all, we’ve had virtual cups of cheer from all of you.

Until next time, I’ll see you on Instagram, Facebook and Pinterest.

Many blessings,

CoCo