DIY Mini Surprise Advent Calendar

This post may contain affiliate links for you to easily find products mentioned. If you click a link and make a purchase, I get a small commission which helps keep the Fox Den up and running. My complete disclosure policy, is here.

Hi friends,

We’re officially into the Christmas season here in blogland and I’m so excited for the content I have coming your way! To start things off, I wanted to make a DIY to countdown the days until my favorite holiday.

I love Christmas and the whole month leading up to it is just as good as the actual day because everything is so festive. I have an advent calendar that I’ve had practically since I was born and I still use it, but it doesn’t really fit in with my decor. I wanted to make one that was a bit more modern so I created this DIY Mini Surprise Advent Calendar!

Supplies to Make a DIY Mini Surprise Advent Calendar

Cricut Maker
Cricut Knife Blade
Cricut Chipboard
Painter’s Tape or Masking Tape
Birch Wood Contact Paper
Acrylic Paint in Your Colors
X-Acto Knife
25 Used K-Pods
Tissue Paper or Scrapbook Paper
Hot Glue
Hot Glue Gun
Scissors

Rather than explain the dimensions for each piece to cut out and have you guys do the math for the size of the circles to fit each K-Pod, I did it for you and made cut files for you!

DIY Mini Surprise Advent Calendar Cut Files

Upload each cut file to your cutting machine’s software (I use Cricut Design Space) and make sure each file’s height and width is no larger than 10.5″. If they cut larger than that, the K-Pods won’t fit snug. Also, the front pieces are set to cut twice. I did this because with all of the holes cut out it was a little flimsier than a solid piece and I wanted it to be sturdy. Cut them out with your software, I used a Cricut Maker machine and the Cricut knife blade and cut them out of chipboard.

Once all of the pieces are cut out, assemble the front pieces together with tape and cut away the excess.

Using hot glue, attach both front pieces together and make sure everything lines up.

Take the birch contact paper and apply it to the front. Repeat all the steps to the solid back pieces. At this step you may want to put contact paper on both sides of the back piece. I realized this after everything was all put together but when you take out a K-Pod, unless you out it back in once you get your gift for the day, you’ll see the inside of the advent calendar and the plain chipboard just doesn’t look as good as the contact paper.

For the front piece, carfeully take an X-Acto knife and cut out the holes.

Take your side pieces and glue them around the edges of the back piece. Once all of the sides are glued to the back, glue on the front.

I didn’t want the sides to be the same color as the front and back, so I mixed up some teal acrylic paint and painted 2-3 coats on the sides. The cut outs also include a base piece that you can glue the whole tree to and I painted that a different shade of blue. Set aside to dry.

While your paint is drying, you can start on turning the K-Pods into gift capsules. Can you tell what my favorite coffee flavor is?

Tear off the foil top and dump out the coffee grounds. Rip off the filter and run the empty pod under water to clean it out.

Fill it with whatever you, your friends, your kids, ANYONE will like! Candy is an easy choice but I also added some festive holiday earrings.

Take your hot glue gun and put it all around the edge of the pod. Top it off with paper. I used tissue paper but I found out after that scrapbook paper probably would’ve been better but I used what I had on hand and I still love it! Because there are 25 days, I used 5 different colors.