Hanging mittens advent calendar.

This advent calendar was made for a customer who inquired with an inspiration photo of colourful felt mittens hanging on a string, each one numbered to represent the numeric day of December before Christmas. This calendar was to match a "white, silver, and gold, snowy Christmas tree" and be modern and rustic in style. The customer also requested that it have hints of other colours throughout. 

Inspiration photo. The customer requested a "hanging mittens" style of advent calendar as shown in this photo but in custom colours of cream, white, silver, and gold.

To stay within the requested colour scheme I made the mittens out of cream felt and cut out the numbers out of white felt. Hints of colour were introduced by using various fabrics, ribbon, thread, and decorative accents on the mitten cuffs. Each pair of mittens has a unique cuff and no two pairs are the same. Mittens are hung on a piece of jute twine using natural wood laundry clips. 

I had the creative freedom to design each cuff as I pleased and I had so much fun with this! I used fabrics with various colours, prints, and textures, and on some cuffs I added decorative accents such as large sparkly snowflakes, bows, a bird sitting on a wintery twig, or jingle bells. 

Each mitten can be stuffed with a treat, a note, a Holiday poem, or whatever else fun you can think of. However, my favourite idea for this advent calendar is what my customer had planned or her kids - the "25 Good Deeds of Christmas": each mitten contained a message from a Christmas gnome. The message was a good deed that her children had to complete in order for the gnome to deliver a treat for them in the evening. Examples of good deeds can include making cookies for a friend, leaving a Christmas card for the mail man, or helping the neighbours. I love this idea! You can get creative with the deeds and make them age appropriate. Since my kiddos are now old enough to understand, I think I'll be implementing this next year as I would like something educational rather than just simply handing out treats each day. They get enough of that already!