Our homemade Sylvanian Families advent calendar

Every year (since having children) Advent seems to get bigger and bigger. I buy both the children chocolate Advent calendars to count down the days until Christmas but in the run up to December 1st I can’t help buy more and more advent calendars! I will be writing a little more about them another day, but today I wanted to share the homemade Sylvanian Families advent calendar I’ve made for them to open.

Our homemade Sylvanian Families advent calendar

Over the past few weeks I’ve been collecting vintage Sylvanian Families items, mainly from eBay. I’ve managed to buy a pretty big collection of Sylvanian babies, nursery equipment and furniture. The idea was to buy a DIY advent calendar and fill it with 24 little Sylvanian items.

I bought a wooden open advent calendar in the shape of a house blank from Hobbycraft and sprayed it with white paint.

I then added some detail in a few of the compartments with black, silver and gold paint.

Then I sorted out my Sylvanian Families collection. I was limited by size but some of the compartments were larger than others. My daughter has wanted the Triple Bunk Bed set for ages so I split it up over three different days, and she also wanted the Swan Boat set and this went into the largest compartment.

I found a few Playmobil miniatures – an advent calendar, tray of Christmas cookies and Christmas cards – which also went in. These should be fun for bringing Christmas to her Sylvanian play.

When I was happy with everything I wrapped it up in Christmassy tissue paper and placed it back in its compartment, and added a little wooden number to each one.

I’m so pleased with the way it looks and really hope my children enjoy opening their little parcels each day during Advent.