Easy DIY IKEA Nereby Hack Advent Calendar and Advent Calendar Ideas

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We love a good IKEA Hack and what’s better than a Easy DIY IKEA Nereby Hack Advent Calendar and Advent Calendar Ideas? We made this IKEA HACK DIY Advent Calendar for $28. Using the IKEA Nereby Hanging Organizer, birch dowel, twine, and a little sewing magic we made this 2’x3.5’ DIY Reusable Advent Calendar!

If you’re not interested in doing a full countdown to Christmas you can cut the project in half for 12 days of Christmas too!

Easy DIY IKEA Nereby Hack Advent Calendar

We used the 4 of the IKEA Nereby Organizer and 1 dowel birch for this DIY Advent Calendar.

Step 1: Keep one organizer fully intact because it will act as the top pockets and loops to hang your dowel from. The 3 remaining Nereby Organizers will need to be cut.

Step 2: Cut the top loop snaps off 3 of the IKEA Nerebey Organizers about 1″ above the pockets.

Step 3: Layer the pockets from bottom to top placing one set of cut pockets down and layering the next cut set right above the pockets. The inch of fabric above the pockets is used to sew the pockets together. You can sew them together or use fabric glue.

Step 4: The birch dowel comes with hanging hardware, but I wanted to tie twine to the ends and hang it as a banner with one nail instead of 4 like the hardware suggested.

I used one screw to hang it and it was able to hold the whole thing!

There you have it! Your very own IKEA Advent Calendar.

If you need a visual you can check out the video tutorial here.

Supplies to Make Your Own DIY IKEA Hack Advent Calendar

IKEA Nereby Organizer
IKEA Nereby Birch Dowel
Fabric Glue or Needle and Thread
Twine

Ideas to fill your Advent Calendar

We fill our advent calendar with lots of local, free, and easy fun activities to do with the family. An advent calendar doesn’t have to be intimidating, simple activities to celebrate the Christmas season are what make it fun! So don’t stress over doing every activity the city Facebook page comes out with. Trust me, your children will not be too upset if they miss something!

We like to use paint chips from The Home Depot to write each activity for the advent calendar. Just used a sharpie and tucked it in the pocket enough for the number to pop out.

Baking Christmas Cookies
Pick out toys to give to Santa to give to other kids
Holiday Parade
Christmas Lights Tour
Build a Gingerbread House
Paint an Ornament
Read a Christmas Book / open a new Christmas book
Chalk
“Let’s Decorate the Tree”
Visit Santa
Hang Christmas Lights
Volunteer for a worthy cause
“Shop Local Day”
Christmas PJ’s
Hang up the stockings!
Holiday puzzle
Make salt dough ornaments
Decorate for Christmas (trust me when I say not everyone decorates before Dec 1.)
Write a letter to Santa
A box of crayons or markers and print out holiday-themed coloring pages
Watch a Christmas movie
Eat a candy cane
Make an apple pie
Holiday stickers

Premade Advent Calendar vs. DIY Advent Calendar

Sometimes the juice isn’t worth the squeeze when it comes to DIY, the cost outweighs the justification to DIY it or you just don’t have the time! We made our own Advent Calendar with the Nereby IKEA Organizers a little late and only did the 12 days leading up to Christmas the first year we made it.

I made the project knowing we would continue to use it year after year. Some premade advent calendars are for one-time use. Like the chocolate advent calendars my sister and I used to get when we were kids, did any other millennials get those when they were kids and resist the urge to eat all 24 chocolates before Santa came?

We’re sharing some great options for pre-made and fillable advent calendars for those who don’t want to DIY your own advent calendar.