Operation Advent Calendar

I'm certainly not the overachiever or anything, but I hustled my butt out to Target on Saturday to put together an ASAP Advent Calendar. I got the inspiration here (the white bag option), but when I found my Target didn't have clothespins I had to improvise a bit.

So here's how you can DIY a superfast Advent Calendar (and yes, I realized I should have had this up last week, but you can always pin this for next year!).

Supplies

• White lunch bags {TIP: the crafting bags were like $4 for 8 vs 40 for $3 so go down the wraps/foil aisle instead of the craft aisle!} 

• 25 dollar bin items; I picked things like stickers, a mini-flashlight (she's been talking about them since Sandy), a 4-pack of Play-Doh I broke up into different days etc. {TIP: besides Target Michael's has a good selection too} 

• 25 numbers - I found a font I liked and printed mine off Word using a candy cane border already in the borders option then I ran out of ink and had to use colored pencils to fill in.

• Glitter and glue with fine tip applicator - I was excited to break open the Martha Stewart crafting supplies I received at Pins & Needles last year for this project! If you're super talented you can freehand the numbers using the glue, but I traced the numbers and sprinkled the glitter over them. 

• Silver Duck Tape - I remembered at BlogHer that Duck Tape was there promoting their new and improved products and saw they had all sorts of fun colors at Target. There was also a gold tape which I thought would've gone great with standard brown paper bags if you want a different color scheme for this project. 

 

 Directions

1. Cut out the squares and glue stick them onto the bags about 1/3 of the way down to allow for folding down the bags after filled
2. Trace the numbers with the fine tip glue applicator and glitter each one over a paper plate to catch any mess {TIP: you could also glitter the numbers first but I did it this way to keep Nia engaged so while she was gluing I was glittering}
3. Fill bags with gifts and tape to wall in 5 rows of 5 using a strip of silver duct tape on the top flap of the bags

The project start to finish took about an hour - that is with a 2 year old so on your own it'd probably go faster!

  
{BTW Mr. Love Bird didn't know what an Advent Calendar was and told me Nia was spoiled for getting 25 dollar bin presents O_o} 

Did you do an Advent Calendar this year? I put a tiara inside Day 25 because Nia's really into princesses lately. What do you think your child would want in Day 25?