I’m not the craftiest person, but every once and a while I get inspired to create something meaningful for my kids… something that they will remember in the years to come that they always did and look forward to eventually doing with their children.
I’ve always loved Advent Calendars. This craft started originally because I was looking for a unique advent calendar and couldn’t find something I really loved. I went to a variety of stores and found big, bulky calendars. Then I found others that were really cute, but made so cheaply made that I was sure they wouldn’t survive a PCS, much less my rowdy bunch. I decided to look on ETSY, but didn’t find anything I was really in love with. Then this idea hit me.
I was originally making this calendar for Christmas, but decided to start with Halloween. You can even do this as a countdown for when Daddy or Mommy will be returning home from deployment or TAD trip. I plan on filling my advent calendar with little notes (go out for ice cream today) or (picnic at the park for dinner) or (game night tonight) or (popcorn movie night).. and also add stickers and treats.
First you’ll need to gather some supplies. Everything I bought came from Michaels Craft Store.
I bought the self sticky magnet rolls to make this a more cost effective project, but you can use magnet sheets as well. You’ll need a mini muffin tin, and a Marvy Uchida cutter (or similar to cover the gap of the muffin divet)
Next you’ll need to cut the magnet strips and paper. I made the strips as long as I could and made them to be about 2″ wide. I wasn’t very exact with my cutting because I knew that it would be improved once I put it into the cutter.
Once the sheet or roll magnets have been cut, peel the back off and place the sticky part on the back of the paper you’re intending to use. I cut the paper after I had the magnet on it… so now you should be left with strips of colored magnet strips (not pictured).
Next, feed the magnet paper into the cutter. If you follow the directions of 2″ strips, the cutter will not make a complete scalloped square, only two sides will end up scalloped.
After you have the cut shapes, all you need to do is decorate! I grabbed a lot of different stickers and ended up making several sets as gifts for both sets of my nephews. The kids had a lot of fun helping put the stickers on.
Once all of the magnets have been decorated, I arranged them onto the muffin tin so that it looked good and then I grabbed a sharpie and numbered them for the days.
October: the first day would start on the 8th and end on Halloween.
November: the first day would would start on the 1st and end on Thanksgiving (there may be a few extra days empty on this one, or you can choose to fill up the calendar and have the kids open up bonus ones for November)
December: first day would start on the 1st and end on Christmas Eve.
