A lot of of people have begun decorating for Christmas and while I know a lot of families wait until December, I think after this challenging year, the earlier we can enjoy the Christmas cheer, the better.

A lot of families enjoy counting down to Christmas with an advent calendar so we decided to make one. Chocolate calendars are traditional, but we’ve decided to fill ours with MiniZoo animals instead (although you could do both!)

You will need:

• Cardboard or paper cups 
• PVA glue
• Permanent marker
• Pom poms - white, black, gold
• Tissue or crepe paper – red and green
• Cardboard - green, red, white, brown and black
• Plasticine clay – orange (and brown if you want to get super crafty)
• Googly eyes
• Elastics
• Something to attach them – Magnets, pegs, lids or a stand for the cups to sit on
• MiniZoo figures. Depending on the size of your cups and the number of children in your household, you could put multiple animals in each cup.

The first step was to decide how many different cup types I wanted. We chose a reindeer, a Santa, a snowman, and a present, and so we did 6 of each in order to make up 24 cups.

• For the reindeer cups, we glued googly eyes and a red pom pom for Rudolf’s red nose. We also glued some brown cardboard ears on the sides and you could even make some antlers out of plasticine clay if you wanted.

• For the Santa cups, we cut out a sparkly red coat and white, triangle beard out of cardboard, gluing those on to the cup with some googly eyes and a little smile was drawn with the marker.

• For the snowman cups, we cut out a snowman body out of white cardboard and a scarf out of foam, but you could use cardboard or even wool if you felt extra crafty. We made the carrot nose out of orange plasticine clay and glued that on with googly eyes. We also cut a top hat out of black cardboard.

• For the present cups, we used a variety of colours for the wrapping paper and the ribbon.

Now for the fun step - putting your MiniZoo animals figures in the cups! Though you may wish to do this one without little ones if you wish the contents to be a surprise each morning. I’ve used a variation of MiniZoo animal types, both plastic and wooden, as I now have 2 little ones, and the wooden ones are great for very little ones.

Some of the figures I used as seen in the photos are: Tenderleaf Fox, Papo House Mouse, Schleich German Shepherd Puppy, Papo Loggerhead Turtle, CollectA Brown Bear Cub, Schleich Rooster, Mojo Tiger Cub Lying, Schleich Zebra Foal, Science and Nature Kookaburra, and the Holztiger Small Sitting Tiger. You'll need 24 figures all up, one in each cup, and small enough for your cup size.

If you wanted to put a few different figures in each cup because you have more kids, then the Wild Republic, Safari or CollectA tubes would be a good option - the animal figures are small so you could fit more in a cup, and you would save money buying a couple. You could also find tubes to suit all types of kids' interests, as we have Fairies, Marine Animals, Vehicles, Dinosaurs, and heaps more.

To cover my cups, I’ve used tissue paper in Christmas colours and an elastic band. Using tissue paper means that the kids can rip or punch their little hands in to find the prize, plus it also adds extra colourful Christmas decoration. Don’t forget to write the December date on the top.

We also made a little Christmas sign for our advent calendar for some extra crafty fun, and you could personalise it even further with your kids’ names.

Attachment and Display

There are a few options for displaying your advent calendar.

Option 1: You could display your calendar by simply sitting the cups on a tiered shelf. This is what I chose to do.

Option 2: You can display it on the fridge by gluing a magnet on the back of each cup. Just ensure your magnets are strong enough to hold the contents of the cup.

Option 3: if you had cup lids, you could stack them on top of one another (for this option, you can leave off the tissue paper top, and simply open the lids each December morning).

Option 4: If you wish to hang your calendar, I’d recommend gluing pegs to the back of the cups and pegging them onto a line of tinsel or string display wherever you like in your house. You could hang them on a bookcase or shelf.

Whatever you decide for display, ensure it's out of reach else your little ones may struggle to simply open one per day. These two little ones couldn't help themselves - oh well.  

Enjoy some craft in the lead up to Christmas and get festive. Share your MiniZoo advent calendars with us on social media, on Instagram, Facebook or Facebook VIP. If you have any questions with the size of figures and whether they’ll suit your calendar, feel free to contact us.

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Stay tuned for our next blog with some Christmas gift ideas from MiniZoo.

Jenna @ MiniZoo