Potted 12 Days of Clay 2025 Advent Calendar: Worth the Hype?

Introduction

Clay craft brand Potted has been showing up in feeds for a while now with themed project boxes, and this year the brand jumped into the advent calendar market with the Potted 12 Days of Clay 2025 edition. Priced at $69, it sits on the cheaper end of the craft advent calendars released this season, but it comes with a twist worth understanding before you buy: the box only covers 12 days, and the way supplies are distributed across those doors looks strange at first glance. After opening every door and actually completing two of the projects, here is how it all holds up.

What Is the Potted 12 Days of Clay Calendar?

The calendar arrives in a nicely designed box styled like a small building, and the packaging quality is genuinely good. Note that the design varies by region: the UK version is a larger, house-shaped box, while this version is flatter, more like an apartment building. Inside, each door contains supplies plus a QR code linking to a step-by-step video tutorial.

Day one is the workhorse of the calendar and packs in a surprising amount: a sponge, a gingerbread man template, a gingerbread house template, a clay wreath template, a holly tealight holder template, a small rolling pin, a number six paintbrush, a wooden Potted knife, and a generous chunk of super clay, an air dry clay that hardens naturally in about 24 hours with no kiln required.

Subsequent doors add red, yellow, white, green, brown, and black paints, a base coat, gloss varnish, a Christmas ornament mold, wine charms, wire sticks, a tealight candle, a star clay cutter, a fairy magic wand topper, a Christmas ornament, and two pieces of ribbon.

How the 12 Days Are Structured

On paper, the distribution is baffling. One door delivers four paints while another holds a single green paint. Day six contains thin wire sticks. Days ten and eleven each hold nothing but a strip of red ribbon. Opening these doors one by one, the reaction is hard to avoid: this looks thin for $69.

The logic only becomes clear once you watch the tutorials. Every day has its own roughly four-minute video, and each one builds on the previous day’s work. The ribbon on day eleven, for example, is not a filler item; it is the finishing step for the wreath you shaped and dried earlier in the month. The fairy wand from day two turns out to be the star topper for a Christmas tree project. In effect, the calendar delivers four complete projects that unfold across the twelve days, with drying time built into the schedule, which makes clay an unusually good fit for the advent format.

The Projects: Four Crafts Across Twelve Days

The four projects are a 3D gingerbread house, a trinket dish, a flat hanging ornament, and a holly tealight holder, plus the gingerbread man and Christmas tree builds covered in the early tutorials. Each has its own template and a dedicated video, and the tutorials are short enough that they never feel like homework.

One quirk worth knowing: some decorative elements are meant to be attached while the clay dries, while similar pieces in other projects are super glued on after painting. The reason is not explained, so be prepared to improvise a little.

Working With the Clay: The Hands-On Experience

The super clay is soft and pleasant to work with from memory of previous Potted products, though it can feel dry at the edges and benefits from a little water when smoothing. Rolling it to an even thickness is genuinely harder than the tutorials make it look; the clay cracks when bent and can develop an uneven middle if you rush it. Beginners should not expect perfection, but the shapes are forgiving and the final pieces still read well once painted.

Painting is straightforward. The base coat goes on easily, the included paints cover well, and the gloss varnish adds a satisfying finished look. One small frustration: some projects supply colored clay for decorative balls while others expect you to paint plain clay red instead, which feels redundant when red clay is already in the box.

Things to Consider Before Buying

The obvious question is value. Two of the twelve doors contain only a strip of ribbon, which is genuinely underwhelming if you are opening them one per day, and even generous doors like day four or day one make the overall spread feel uneven. A second paintbrush would also have helped, and consolidating the two ribbon days would have gone a long way.

That said, you do get four complete projects with guided tutorials for every single day, quality air dry clay, a full set of paints and finishing supplies, and a well-made box. If you judge it purely on the contents at first glance, it looks overpriced. If you follow the tutorial structure and treat it as four staggered craft projects rather than twelve standalone gifts, the value case improves considerably.

Buying Advice

This calendar makes the most sense for craft enthusiasts who enjoy guided projects and do not mind waiting for clay to dry between steps. It is also a good pick for couples or families who want a shared activity leading into the holidays, since the projects are simple enough for total beginners yet satisfying to complete. If you want an advent calendar where every door delivers an exciting standalone surprise, the ribbon-heavy days will likely disappoint. At $69 it is one of the more affordable craft advent calendars this season, but it is still a considered purchase rather than an easy impulse buy.

Conclusion

The Potted 12 Days of Clay 2025 advent calendar is a tale of two impressions. Unboxed at a glance, the door contents look thin and unevenly distributed for $69. Followed properly, with the daily tutorials stitching the supplies into four connected projects, it becomes a genuinely thoughtful craft experience with real substance. It will not satisfy anyone hunting for a dramatic reveal behind every door, but for hands-on makers who enjoy a project that unfolds over time, it delivers a lot of creative mileage from its twelve days.