Halloween Advent Calendar: A Spooky but Cute DIY Craft

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Advent calendars aren’t just for Christmas! My girls LOVE Halloween. It’s also the one holiday that my husband loves too. So, why not celebrate all month long?

I found this idea on Pinterest from Stephanie Hanna and I loved it! I just knew I had to try to make one for us.

And here’s how I did it!

Supplies

For this project, I used:

24″ embroidery hoop

googly eyes

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Step 1: Make Your Advent List

First things first, you want to make sure that you have enough activities to fill up the month before you get started.

I wrote down a bunch of things that we do every year, like buy costumes, go to a pumpkin patch, watch Hocus Pocus, carve pumpkins, etc. And then I added some ‘easy’ things like wear a Halloween shirt, light a fall-scented candle, drink hot chocolate, etc.

For the rest of the month, I had to search Pinterest for some ideas. And Stephanie Hanna has a whole list of rhyming clues to make a scavenger hunt advent calendar! How cool is that?!? (We do a scavenger hunt advent calendar for Christmas and my kids LOVE it!)

Our List:

Halloween Movie Night: watch the Nightmare Before Christmas
get Halloween Costumes
put up Halloween decorations

wear a Halloween shirt
burn a fall-scented candle
go to the library and get Halloween books

listen to Halloween songs
Halloween Movie Night: Hocus Pocus
go watch Hotel Transylvania 4 at the theater

bake Halloween cookies
learn the dance to Thriller
eat dinner by candlelight

eat some Halloween candy
wear a Halloween shirt
Halloween Movie Night: Halloween Town

go to a pumpkin patch
play a board game
draw a Halloween picture

do a Halloween craft
burn a fall candle
drink hot chocolate

Halloween Movie Night: The Addams Family
carve pumpkins
get Halloween cards ready to mail

eat a Halloween snack
turn the kids into mummies
sing Happy Birthday to Lexy

wear a Halloween shirt
Halloween Movie Night: Casper
go to the Fall-o-Ween Festival

go trick-or-treating

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Step 2: Wrap the Embroidery Hoop

The first step to making the Halloween Advent Calendar was to wrap the embroidery hoop with the yarn.

It can be done on your own, but it will go much faster and smoother if you have someone hold the hoop while you wrap.

After it’s completely wrapped, secure the loose piece with hot glue.

Making a DIY Halloween advent calendar. — *(He’s always willing to help me with my projects….even right after he walks in the door from work!)*

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Step 2: Adding Embellishments to the Hoop

After the hoop was completely wrapped, I added the embellishments at the top, using 3 Halloween wreath picks I found at Michaels.

The black glittery leaves gave me a good background/filler and the ghost and candy corn made it cutesy.

To add them to the hoop, I cut the ‘stems’ off with wire cutters and hot-glued them to the wooden piece of the embroidery hoop that has the screw tension on it.

*(The wreath picks I used to decorate the advent calendar.)*

Added some spooky but cute decorations to our Halloween advent calendar. — *(Some spooky but cute decorations for our Halloween advent calendar!)*

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Step 3: Make the Number Cards

This was the most time-consuming part for me. But I love paper crafts, so I enjoyed making the Halloween advent calendar number cards.

Using scrapbook supplies that I already had on hand, these little cards turned out better than I expected. I used black construction paper, striped and glittery scrapbook paper, number/letter stickers, and googly eyes.

I placed the striped paper in different places on each card, added the stickers and googly eyes, and then punched a hole in the top.

For the back of the card, I used regular computer paper, wrote down that day’s activity, and glued it to the back.

It was simple but time-consuming. I watched the last season of Schitt’s Creek while I cut and glued, so I didn’t mind.

Halloween advent calendar for kids! — *(Front of the activity cards.)*

Put some fun activities on our advent calendar for Halloween. — *(Back of the activity cards.)*

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Step 4: Tie the Cards to the Hoop

This part of the Halloween advent calendar was frustrating, but not as bad as I thought it was going to be.

I laid the hoop flat on the ground and placed the cards in numerical order at the length I wanted them to hang. Then I cut the string and tied one end to the top of the card and the other end to the top of the hoop.

Make sure you cut the string longer than you actually need to make it easier to tie. You can always trim it afterward.

Leave the hoop laying flat until you have tied all of your cards on. Then carefully pick it up and hang it on the wall.