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Did you realize that most over-the-door shoe organizers have 24 pockets? We didn’t either until we were looking for inspiration for Christmas ideas recently and noticed that a 24-pocket shoe organizer means a perfect Christmas Advent calendar. Adding the Grinch to it makes it extra fun!
To recreate a calendar like ours, you will need to make sure the organizer you select has clear fronts. The first thing we did was cover the back of the organizer with a piece of fleece in Grinch green. We placed the organizer on top of the fleece and cut around it to size. Then, we used a glue gun to adhere the fleece to the back. Since the organizer was so long, we had to use two pieces of fabric. Hiding the seam was easy though. Just put it behind one of the horizontal white lines.
Then we used thin, red ribbon to cover the white lines that criss-crossed the shoe organizer. The final touch was adding a faux fur trim across the top of the pockets to mimic the fur trim on the Grinch’s Santa outfit.
Decorating the organizer is easy and fun. Making the story inserts for each pocket is just a little more difficult. You will need a copy of How the Grinch Stole Christmas in order to use the images and story from the book. We suggest that you scan the pages in and re-size them to fit your pockets. Be careful, though, because you might find that not all the pockets are the same size. Make your re-sized images fit the smallest pocket size and you will be fine. When you have the images all set, print the 24 panels of the story out onto white card stock and trim them to size.
To give you a head start on this, we’re going to share the story cards that we created for our calendar. They are sized specifically to suit our organizer needs, so they might not fit in your pockets, but hopefully you’ll be able to get them to work and we can save you loads of time!
Download our “How the Grinch Stole Christmas” story cards
Once you get your story all printed out, you need to attach the day numbers (1 through 24) to the back of the cards. For my numbers, I used card stock in Grinch green and red and cut it with my Cricut
I want these cards to last a long time so I used my laminator
The front (story side) of the cards were so neat to look at just on their own. Then I put them in the holder, with the number side showing and the story hidden. The story will be revealed a little each day, but for now you should just see the numbers. We’re all set for the start of the big Christmas countdown!
To get started with the calendar, wrap up a little gift for each day and stick it in a pocket. Then each day of December, the kids will open the presents in the pocket and then flip over that day’s story card. To help keep track of which day you’re on, you can add a Grinch doll
I think it looks super cute even without the presents but look at how much cuter it is with the presents and your Grinch doll marker!
This idea can be adapted to any theme you want. We think A Charlie Brown Christmas
Here are a few additional items to help complete your Grinch-style Christmas celebration!
20 comments so far:
This is such a great idea especially moving the plushy Grinch along with the days. Love those Cricut numbers, too. The shapes are so Dr. Seuss-ish. Congrats of the win for this idea! Well deserved.
Thank, Baye. However, we came in second on this one by a nose!
I love the Grinch and I love this idea! I might have to make one for me and one for my friend’s kids.
This is SOOOO cute!! Love it!
What a cute idea…thank you for sharing.
Love this idea!!! I’m thinking of making them as teacher gifts!
How did you do the pages of the book? Did you put more than 1 page on each day? Like did you combined 2 pages into 1 card?
Cool idea! I dug that same door sorter out of my closet and am going to make one for my classroom. I may go with a Twas the Night Before Christmas Theme though. Thanks!
Jennifer, sometimes we did combine two pages into one card because there wasn’t a lot of text there. If you flip through the book, you will see sections that can be combined easily. For instance, the whole time he is in Cindy’s house, the pictures are pretty much the same so we combined all the text into two days. I hope that helps!
Hooray! I finished mine. The theme is “Santa Claus is Comin’ to Town”. THANKS so much for the inspiration! My nieces are going to love it. I even found a Kris Kringle plushie on eBay for the placeholder! I used red felt on the back, white furry trim around the outer edges, and white pom pom trim on the pockets. What a fun project!
Pam, love the theme! We would love to see a picture. You can email us one or add it to our Flikr group.
This is the best advent idea I’ve seen in a long time!! I’m excited to do it!
I put a few pictures on the Flikr group (my screen name is magnifisweets.) Thanks again for the idea! So fun!
What Cricut font did you use? I LOVE it!
Pam, this is beyond fabulous! You make me want to make even more Advent calendars! Readers, make sure you take a look to see how she cut up her book to make the cards for the pockets. So cute!
I used the Storybook cartridge. Thanks!
Thanks for the wonderful advent calendar idea! Thanks too for stopping by my blog to check out the one I made and leave a comment ^_^.
What size of card fits in each slot? (I’m lazy!) lol
Penny, each organizer is going to be different, so our measurements will probably not work on yours. I’m afraid you’re going to have to measure your pockets yourself
This is absolutely adorable! Oh my stars! My girl LOVES the Grinch — so perfect!