Twenty-Four Small Acts of Making: A Camden Advent Calendar for the Creatively Curious

Advent calendars are usually about opening. This one is about making. December in Camden can feel like a race: the lights on the High Street, the market crowds, the pressure to buy something shiny. So here’s a different countdown. One small creative prompt for each day from 1 to 24, designed to take five to twenty minutes, cost almost nothing, and use what you’ve already got. It’s not a shopping list. It’s a ritual — a way of marking the month with your hands instead of your bank card.

How it works

Pick a prompt, do it, tick it off. That’s it. There’s no catch-up guilt and no prize for finishing. The calendar is a menu, not a contract. If you miss a day, skip it. If a prompt doesn’t fit your energy, swap it for a three-minute version. The only rule is: use something you already own, or something destined for the recycling bin.

The 24 prompts

• Day 1 — Map-chain. Cut old maps, flyers or wrapping paper into strips and make a paper chain. Hang it somewhere you’ll see it.
• Day 2 — Window plant drawing. Draw the most boring plant in your home. Give it a dramatic name.
• Day 3 — Scrap patch. Sew or glue a fabric scrap onto a plain tote or old shirt. No neatness required.
• Day 4 — Pinch pot. Make a tiny clay pot from air-dry clay or salt dough. Leave it to dry on a windowsill.
• Day 5 — Camden door sketch. Walk to the nearest interesting door and sketch it in five minutes. A biro is fine.
• Day 6 — Potato print. Carve a simple shape into a potato half and print it onto scrap paper or a plain card.
• Day 7 — Cardboard candle holder. Cut and fold a cardboard disc into a simple holder for a tea light. Paint it if you like.
• Day 8 — Maker’s manifesto. Write three sentences on a luggage tag: what you make, why you make it, and what you’ll try next.
• Day 9 — Tea-dye cloth. Steep a small piece of white fabric in strong tea for ten minutes. Dry it flat.
• Day 10 — Tiny zine. Fold one sheet of A4 into an eight-page zine. Fill it with one idea, one drawing and one bad joke.
• Day 11 — T-shirt coaster. Cut old jersey into strips and weave a small coaster. No loom? Use a piece of cardboard with notches.
• Day 12 — Beeswax wrap. If you have beeswax and cotton, make a food wrap. If not, draw the instructions for someone who does.
• Day 13 — Felt bauble. Cut a circle from an old wool jumper, stuff it with scraps and tie it with string.
• Day 14 — Matchbox altar. Fill a matchbox with three tiny treasures: a pebble, a button, a line from a song.
• Day 15 — Paper star. Fold a five-point star from a magazine page. Hang it with thread.
• Day 16 — Mend something. Sew a button, darn a sock, tape a book spine. Mend one thing you were going to throw away.
• Day 17 — Lavender bag. Fill the foot of an old sock with dried lavender or rice and tie it shut.
• Day 18 — Leaf press. Pick up three fallen leaves and press them inside a heavy book. Label them with the date.
• Day 19 — Cardboard loom. Make a simple loom from a rectangle of cardboard and weave a bookmark.
• Day 20 — Postcard to a future maker. Write a postcard to yourself in December 2027. Say what you want to have made.
• Day 21 — Jam-jar lantern. Cover a clean jar with tissue paper and glue. Put a battery tea light inside.
• Day 22 — Biscuit decoration. Bake or buy plain biscuits and decorate them with icing. Eat the evidence.
• Day 23 — Five-minute show-and-tell. Show one thing you made this month to a friend, flatmate or the postman. No apologies.
• Day 24 — Rest and look. Lay out everything you made. Take a photo. Notice what you liked doing most.

Contributor tips from Camden makers

‘The pinch pot doesn’t need to be good. It needs to be made,’ says Marta, a ceramicist who works from a shared studio in Chalk Farm. ‘So much of making is just allowing yourself to be a beginner in public.’

Dev, a textile artist in Kentish Town, suggests keeping a ‘scrap bag’ by the sofa: ‘Mending and weaving are TV activities. You don’t need a studio. You need a bag of old T-shirts and ten minutes.’

And Nadia, a knitter from Gospel Oak, has the most useful tip of all: ‘If you only do three rows, that counts. Three rows is a day.’

Make it fit your life

This calendar is meant to be inclusive, not aspirational. If you have limited space, choose the drawing, writing and paper prompts. If money is tight, every prompt can be done with found materials — the recycling bin is your supplier. If you have low energy or a chronic illness, pick the three-minute prompts and ignore the rest. If you’re neurodivergent, treat the checklist as a visual menu, not a to-do list. And if you’re a confident maker, use the prompts as warm-ups rather than projects: ten minutes, then stop.

A community ritual, not a shopping list

You can do this alone, but it’s better with others. Put the checklist on the fridge. Send a photo to a friend on day 7. Host a five-minute show-and-tell on day 23. Use the hashtag #CamdenMakesAdvent if you want to find other people doing the same odd, small, lovely things. December will still be busy. But it might also be full of paper stars, mendings and tiny clay pots. That’s a countdown worth having.