Finding ways to boost wellbeing and feel good at home are imperative towards maintaining healthy bodies and minds.

Getting creative at home is a great way to keep yourselves and your families entertained for hours, whilst stimulating those minds and taking a moment to relax and feel good. Enjoy our quick and easy-to-follow guides for fun, feel-good crafts using bits and pieces from around the house.

"Create at Home" crafts are generally aimed at and adaptable for all ages or to participate in as a family, but some crafts may be more age-appropriate than others.

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Get ready for the festive season by making your own advent calendar to help you count down to Christmas. We have made a train, but you can design anything you like. Then you can get creative with filling the pockets with daily treats. How about sweets, written messages or drawings?

You will need:

• Coloured paper
• Fancy paper (optional)
• Coloured pens
• Scissors
• Glue stick
• Ruler

First, you need to make 24 pockets:

Divide your paper into strips. They can be any size, the bigger the strips, the bigger the pockets. We made ours 6 cm wide. Use your ruler to make sure they are all the same size.

Cut out 24 strips.

Fold your strip of paper in half leaving about 2cm gap from the top of the paper. Put some glue along the long edges and press down. Make sure you only glue the edges, leave the top open.

Fold the sides over by about 0.5cm. Glue the folds down up to the top of your first fold to secure the edges of your pocket.

Repeat steps 1 to 4 until you have 24 pockets. Decorate each pocket and write a number on it. You can use coloured pens or fancy paper to decorate them.

Cut out a shape and glue your first two pockets onto it. You might need to trim them to fit! I cut out a train but you could make it any shape you fancy. Make sure you leave 2 flaps at the top to fold over your string, around 2cm should do.

 

Attach your shape to the string by placing some glue on the flaps and folding them over it.

Attach your pockets in the same way, by folding and gluing the paper flap at the top of the pocket over your string.

Finally, you need to fill those pockets. What will you put in them? You could write positive messages such as a poem or a joke, or you could draw some festive pictures. How about adding some activity ideas, games to play, or things to do, to help inspire you throughout December to have some fun each day!

Ta-Dah! Now your advent calendar is complete.