SCK Tries…DIY Projects Advent Calendar

It’s another edition of SCK Tries where we try out a tutorial or kit to see how it works in real life and whether we’d recommend you give it a go. This time I’m working through 24 mini DIY projects from a Flying Tiger advent calendar. I’m only half way through but I’m sharing this now as you might still be able to grab one in store.

The Original DIY

I like trying random crafts so was immediately drawn to this advent calendar at Flying Tiger with a simple DIY project for every day – mainly ornaments to hang on the tree or use as gift tags/toppers. I thought it would be a fun challenge for December (like I’m not busy enough!) and the pictures on the back made it seem ike they should be quick and easy. It was also just £12, which is a real bargain.

Contents & Materials

I really liked that the back of the calendar has a cute design so you can display that when the front becomes a mess of open windows! It’s quite a thick box so that each day’s space is deep enough for a mini kit. All the supplies are packaged inside a colourful paper envelope and the IKEA-style pictorial instructions are printed on the inside. There’s also a QR code to scan that takes you to a PDF with written instructions in a wide range of languages for extra details.

Process

Printing the instructions inside turned out to be not that great an idea as it’s almost impossible to open them without tearing through something and a few even had the tabs glued over a crucial step. The text instructions are quite basic too so I was frequently confused but usually got there in the end.

The contents were simple enough with things like pipe cleaners, beads, felt and paper. All I’ve needed on top is a pair of scissors as it includes things like sticky dots instead of glue and even a little plastic needle for sewing. I’m only half way through the calendar but all the kits so far have had so few steps that I haven’t taken any in progress photos and most only took a short time to complete.

The End Result

Here’s the things I’ve enjoyed making the most…so far. The stitched snowflake was my favourite and I’m going to mark out that pattern so that I can use it again in future. It even looks good from the back! The bead & pipe cleaner candy cane is super simple and yet really effective. The mouse and Santa just involved sticking things to other things but were very satisfying.

And here’s some more that were not as fun but sometimes still turned out cute. Or completely hilarious – that first reindeer made me laugh for about 3 days. Generally the problem with these was confusing instructions. a bad choice of materials or a general sense of ‘will this do?’ shoddiness that made it impossible for me to do a good job.

Overall though, I’m having fun and only occasionally regretting starting this. I’m sharing the kit contents and the finished items on our Instagram stories so you can catch up on everything so far and then check back daily for the rest of the calendar.