December 20 - A crafty Advent swap

Welcome to December!

So happy to have you join us for our

Counterfeit Kit Challenge Advent Calendar 

as we "open the door" each day and share something seasonal with you.

We are heading to the end of the Advent period now as well as coming to the end of our Advent Calendar here on the Counterfeit Kit Challenge blog - it always surprises me how fast the second half of Advent goes after a seemingly slow start!

I mentioned before that Advent is a pretty big thing here in Germany. I even linked up a page I made a few years ago about the Scrapabilly Advent Swap which I'm part of. I'm one of a group of 6 (7 originally) crafty ladies who meet up almost every week for scrapping, card making or just drinking a glass of bubbles and laughing together! A few years ago, someone came up with the idea of an crafty Advent calendar and it's become almost the highlight of our creative year - so much so that we've started doing it twice a year now and have another one at Easter with all sorts of pretty spring colours!

I love this and have enjoyed opening my gift up so much each morning that I thought I'd share it with you!

Look at all this scrumminess that decorates my dressing table and brings a smile to my face each morning!

There are 6 of us which means that each of us provides a small gift for the other 5 people on five different days. One of us is a "Joker" and basically does the same but labels their gifts for each of the 25 days being exchanged! In this way, when it is "your" day to give out your gifts, the "joker" is your gift for that day because you don't give yourself a gift - this sounds way more complicated than it is!

Here's a visual overview of how we organised ourselves this year!

We set ourselves a small budget of just a Euro or two a day for each present in the knowledge that we all "cheat" a bit and we all go to town on the wrapping and presentation! But it's also part of the fun to come up with really small, reasonably priced presents for each other and there might be a few really silly things in there too!

Because there are 6 of us this year, we go from the 1st to the 25th December but I think that you can tweak it in any way to suit your own group of crafty friends!

We set ourselves an exchange day and come together in anticipation of all that prettiness that is coming our way. The exchange evening has become a tradition in itself. Each of us lays out our mix of pretty parcels (5 parcels for 5 days remember!) and then we take it in turns to exchange and receive these little packages of happiness until each of us have 25 gorgeously intriguing swap items to take home with us! There's a lot of laughter and photos and a glass of Glühwein as well as plenty of Christmas music to accompany the swapping!

Here are the 25 parcels I prepared for the others - coordinated and over the top with ribbons and glitter!

Why not bring a group of your own creative peeps together to make your very own Advent Swap? It's way more fun that you might think, and makes each dull and dark early morning in December a joy!

Here's a layout I made about our exchange in 2016. I take a photo each day of the package and present inside - this type of overview layout was perfect to capture it all.

We hope you will continue to share your own crafty creations and ideas throughout December using the:  Link-Up page here on the blog, posting in the Counterfeit Kit Challenge Facebook Community Group or on Instagram (find us @counterfeitkitchallenge and share with #counterfeitkitchallenge)