My first Advent Calendar

I am so proud that I made my first Advent Calendar all from recycled materials - Ellie's Christmas cards. We have been keeping all these cards for a few years now. This is one great way to turn them into something that we can use instead of just something to be kept in the cupboard.

The cutest thing about this calendar is that the card sender's signature/name is on every window. Every morning Ellie opens up a window and finds out which child sent her a Christmas card and what the card looked like.

Here are some brief instructions of how I made them:
1. Cut out the name/signature first.  Make sure you leave enough space around all sides as window frames. The border of my windows are 1/4" because I used quilting rulers.
2. Use the cutout name/signature piece as a template to cut out an interesting part of the card.
3. Cut a big "I" on the back of the name/signature piece. Use the back of a knife to score the two sides of the "I" to make it easier to open the window. 
4. Glue the name/signature piece onto the card cutout in step 2. Now you have your first window. Repeat this for the next 23 windows.
5. Glue all 24 windows on a big cardboard (mine is a house shape as I want to make a village if I can make one a year). Any shape will do.
6. Cut numbers from a used calendar and glue the numbers on the windows. It will be good to save a couple of pages from previous months earlier so you can have them all in the same colour.

Voila!! The calendar is done!

I will post a picture when all 24 windows are open.