When my niece was pregnant, I designed a couple of fabrics to use for baby clothes for her daughter. My husband and I, my SIL and my niece and nephew all worked together at a haunted attraction for several years, where my niece was an alien, so that is the theme we settled on.
I made the calendar blank out of cotton twill and some of my large vintage binding stash. The rest is all hand painting. Like the original fabric design, it is meant to be deliberately childlike, so I’m fine with it being a little sloppy, but I,would not choose to paint on twill again. No such thing as a clean line. Also, doggy dinnertime interrupted my 18, and when I went back, my brain had ratcheted to the next number, so I painted a 9 instead of an 8. Mostly recovered from that one. The painting looks more even in person, especially when it is against a wall, rather than hanging in air with a light behind it… But yeah. So now to get a rod and hang twine and some goodies!
How wonderfully personal and sweet! I love it. Do the numbers have pockets?
The painting is great and you definitely can’t tell you messed up on number 18.
Yeah, the rows of pale pink binding are the top edges of pockets. The pockets are fairly flat, but are 2.75" by just shy of 3", so a gift card, little candy treats, pens, pencils, erasers, a matchbox car, will all fit. The long stuff won’t fit all the way, but I was limited to 4" long on the stuff I did in the paper calendar I made last years, so this opens up some other possibilities.
The blank was so easy to make. One piece 18" x 24", four pieces 18" x 3.5", and three pieces 6" x 3" (or really, these are for the tabs and are super flexible size-wise), plus 1 pkg each of 1/4" and 1/2" double fold binding. I have enough material to make a second, and thought about making my friend’s boys an advent calendar that was DIY. Like. Making up a blank, and this year, decorating the calendar IS the calendar. Lol
My goodness this is wonderful! So weirdly specific to your grand niece and you and all the memories with the family, etc. I can just imagine a future partner encountering this for the first time with bemused bafflement and them getting to hear the story full of love.
Congratulations! Your lovely Little Alien Advent Calendar is a featured project this week!
P.S. I edited your post to put the picture of the calendar at the top, so that’s the thumbnail image that would show in our Featured Projects header at the top of the landing page.
Congratulations! Your lovely Little Alien Advent Calendar is a featured project this week! 
