DIY Christmas Advent Calendar

I was on a mission this year to make a great Christmas Advent Calendar.  DH & the girls cannot have gluten-wheat, rye, & barley.  This makes it very difficult at Christmas time when those advent calendars hit the store shelves.  The girls have had an advent calendar since they were small & they are not about to give them up now.  When we were at Michelle's for Canning Palooza we saw her 2012 Davids Tea Advent Calendar.  What a great idea!! Sample a different tea each day. 
This would be huge improvement from 2012.  With Bruce in the hospital in early December, the advent calendars were containers with gluten-free candy stuffed in them.  As you can tell I was not in the mood for Christmas.  What can I say, our Christmas tree was a Snowman with the gifts around the bottom.

  

2012's Advent Calendar!

DD#1 had come across a DIY Advent Calendar on Pinterest.  I love that place for ideas!  I really liked this advent calendar & decided to put a sample of Davids Tea in each of the round containers instead of candy. 

I went to Michaels and purchased the 2 inch round favor tins, Christmas scrapbook paper for the frame, the 12x12 frame & a magnetic sheet.  Next stop was Home Depot as I needed a 12x12 sheet of metal.  With help from Customer Service, I found this in the duct aisle.  DH cut it to size with tin snips.

24 - 2 inch round favor tins

Christmas Scrapbook paper

12x12 frame

I set to work assembling the DIY Advent Calendar.

Assembling the Advent Calendar

This is the finished DIY Advent Calendar

Finished DIY Advent Calendar

Close Up of DIY Advent Calendar.
The 25th round flavor tin will have 2 Hersey's Kisses in it.

Now it was time for a trip to Davids Tea for 24 varieties of tea.  Davids Tea has an advent calendar that goes on sale every year.  I found a list of the teas online from their 2012 advent calendar.  There were teas in it I would never want to try.  I detest peppermint tea so would never buy it.  I decided it would be a good idea to go through the Davids Tea catalogue and pick the teas we would like to try.  I decided on 24 as there are 4 of us and that divides very nicely into 24, being 6 teas each.  Now the hard part, picking just 6 teas each.  Bruce & I stopped at Davids Teas, Mississauga Square One on the way back from Toronto.  I explained to the server what I wanted to do and she was absolutely wonderful.  She bagged 24 varieties of 10g tea. 

24 varieties of Davids Teas

DD#1 loves black teas, DD#2, green, Bruce, rooibos & me, herbals.  This way we get to try teas we normally would not try.  Looking forward to December 1st to start trying these teas.

Wordless Wednesday

Davids Teas

We stopped at Davids Teas at Mississauga Square One on the way home from Toronto after spending the day at Garden Expo.  After getting a hot tea, we decided to get 10g of 4 different teas to sample when were got home.

Here are the 4 we chose & what we thought of them. 

Bruce's choice: Coffee Pu'erh -  5/5 stars
"Even coffee addicts go crazy for cooked pu'erh laced with coffee beans-plus caramel, chocolate and almond extracts."

Bruce was the only one to try this tea as we do not like coffee.  He had it with 1.5 tsps of turbindo sugar & a little bit of milk.  If you love coffee you would like this tea--it's tea that tastes like coffee.


My choice:  Honey Bee - 4/5 stars
"This honey-flavoured nectar of mate, honeybush, rooibos and lemon is just about the sweestest energy-enhancer around"

We all tried the tea Honey Bee, but only Bruce, myself and DD2 really liked this one.  Sweetener of choice, agave.


DD#1's choice was Birthday Cake - 4/5 stars
"This sweet and festive rooibos blend brings the taste of birthday cake to your cup andy day of the year -- sprinkles and all.  Caffeine-free"

We all tried this tea as well but only DD1 & myself liked this one.  DD1 likes it so much we ordered more for her birthday party, she will be having Birthday Cake Tea with dessert.  Sweetener of choice, agave


DD#2's choice: Guava Cadabra - 5/5 stars
"With mango, hibicus and guava, this sweet, tropical fruit blend is seriously magical.  Ice yourself a cup and prepare to fall under its spell.  Caffeine-free"

Wow! We all tried Guava Cadabra & this is a tea that will regularly be in our tea cupboard.  We all LOVED this tea.  Sweetener of choice, honey.

Remembrance Day