DIY Advent Calendar

Day 2:

So when I was a kid, we grew up with a adorable wooden advent calendar with little doors and cute paintings on each door. But instead of putting chocolate or candy in each day my parents would take 3 pieces and hide them in the calendar. We would wait turned around, eyes closed until they said when we could open and face the calendar. We would then take turns, one by one opening each door and eventually find the chocolate waiting for us. The only rule was we could only open 1 door at a time. I loved this tradition and I hope to pass it on to my children...but until then here's my "more traditional" calendar. Every day I will get chocolate and a encouraging note from myself to myself, its going to be awesome!

Here's how I made it:

What you will need:

-24 Paper Cups ( I got mine from Target)

-Chocolate/ Candy

-Tissue Paper

-24 Sheets of paper

-String or Twine (again, Target)

-Clear Elastics (I got these at Family Dollar with the hair stuff)

-24 Tags/ Label of some kind

-Scissors

-Large needle

-Hot Glue Gun

-Ruler

-Pencil

I actually didn't start out this way, but I wished I had, so you can learn from my mistakes by taking your needle and twine and going in on one side of the cup and going out the other.

Once you have your first set of cups (I had 12 on one string), Tie a not with a loop on both ends of the string.

Then hot glue the holes you made in the cups on both entry point and exit point. That way the cups won't all slide together when you pick it up.

Once you have 24 cups on string, glued and ready to go. Turn cups over.

This is where I actually started by cutting 6 sheets of paper into 4 parts.

I then grabbed a couple of stamps and some sharpies to write encouraging notes to myself.

Then put my note and a couple a pieces of chocolate into my cup

Set that aside, cut your tissue paper. I cut 5 1/2 in X 5 1/2 in to fit my cup.

Grab a single piece of tissue, put on top of cup and gently put your elastic over the cup.

Flip all the cups back with tissue facing down. Then write each day on a tag and hot glue it to each cup and voila!

It actually took me a while to do...maybe 4 hours, so I would suggest doing this with a friend or your kid and make a day of it! By all means it is not perfect but I love it and Im excited to see what each day brings!