Do you want to make a cool advent calendar? Advent calendars are often used during the month of December for the days leading up to Christmas. They provide a fun way to count down to the holiday and are great for helping keep your holiday season focused around family and serving others. Advent calendars are a big hit with children because they usually involve family activities, but they can also be adapted to include a small treat that is enjoyed each night.

This cute advent calendar uses salve jars that allow you to put little things inside, such as chocolates, small candies, activity ideas, sample vials with oils, pictures, recipe cards, etc.

The idea is to glue strong magnets to the bottoms of the salve jars so that they will stick to a magnet board or refrigerator. Then you apply the numbered stickers to the tops of the salve jars and arrange them into a Christmas tree pattern. Apply the activity stickers inside the salve jars, and fill the salve jars with any correlated items for the activities you want to do each day. Starting December 1st, you take down the jar with the number 1, open it, and complete the activity for the day. Then you repeat each day with the jar that correlates with the date until Christmas day.

Feel free to use these downloadable files:

Christmas Tree Number Stickers (print them on these labels)
Activity Idea Stickers (print them on these labels)
Recipe Cards (print them on regular or card stock paper)
Christmas Tree Pattern (diagram of how we arranged the salve jars in a Christmas tree shape)

If you would rather design your own stickers, these labels fit the 1 oz. or 1/2 oz. salve jars both inside and out.

We hope you give this advent calendar a try this year!

Salve Jar Advent Calendar

Time: 30 minutes active | Difficulty: Medium

Supplies:

• Blank Circle Labels (use with this Christmas tree numbers template and this activities template, or create your own design)
• Super glue or magnet adhesive to attach the magnets (Note: hot glue seemed to work well for us, but we did have a couple magnets fall off if we accidentally dropped the salve jar.)
• 24 strong magnets (1/2″–1″ Neodymium magnets work really well (you could even do 3 tiny 1/8″ magnets on each salve jar), but 1″ ceramic magnets also work)
• 24 salve jars (the 1 oz. size work the best for hiding small objects, but the 1/2 oz. size will also work with the labels)
• Items to include inside, such as these recipe cards, small treats, sample vials for diffuser blends, etc.
• Magnet board for displaying your advent calendar

Instructions:

1. Use the templates to print the labels, or create your own.
2. Attach the magnets to the bottoms of the salve jars. Attach the number labels to the tops of the salve jars.
3. Decide what activities you want to do, and assign them to the day you want to do them. Then apply the activity stickers inside the associated salve jars. You can always rearrange the activities by changing the lids.
4. Add any other items associated with the activity, such as recipe cards, sample vials for diffuser blends, etc.
5. Arrange the salve jars on your magnet board.
6. To use, starting on December 1st, open the salve jar with the number that correlates with the date, and complete the activity. Continue every day as you count down to Christmas!

Update 11/18/2016: We now have these small tins that would work really well for this project! Check them out here: 2 oz. Tin Can with Window Lid.