How many days until Christmas????

This question can be exciting if you are 5 and fear-inducing if you are an adult shopping, cleaning and cooking in preparation for the big day!!

I can remember College Girl asking many times a day when she was little. ( In case you have small ones and they are already driving you crazy asking this question - let me assure you. You will miss it when they are older! )

I have found that an Advent Calendar is a big help with this. We actually did a countdown calendar for all big events - vacations, birthdays, etc. 
This reusable Advent calendar is a fun and easy project and each child can do their own counting down - no discussions on whose turn it is to "do" the Advent Calendar each day. We had our little camp this week to make these -it's a popular project and I do it every other year or so - my friend with 5 children sent her 3 youngest to make their own. Peace on Earth ?? At least at their house at Advent Calendar time!!

This is so easy! I simply used a cookie sheet from Wal-Mart. Just 97 cents! Dollar Tree is obviously a good place to look, too. I spray painted them Satin Black using that new Dual Purpose Spray Paint - primer and paint in one. It is a dream!! Worth the price for painting metal. Especially when you are doing 14!! And that is why I don't have any pictures to show you of the process or their finished projects!! I went over my class size limit of 10 due to popular demand and apparent inability to say no. I wish I had better pictures - theirs were soooo cute. Lots of snow!

I punched a hole in the top lip with my Crop-A-Dile ( see earlier posts if you are not familiar) and then we taped of a triangle with painter's tape. We sponged three shades of green craft paint inside the triangle and carefully removed the tape! We used q-tips and pencil erasers to make dots of white paint outside the triangle to look like a snowy Christmas scene. A little white spatter paint and it's ready to use!

I purchased pre-cut fun foam Christmas shapes for our "ornaments" We did not peel off the protective paper. We simply stuck a small square of peel and stick magnet tape to the back of each shape. ( I pre- numbered the shapes 1-24 and #25 is a sparkly gold star for the top of the tree. Older children could do this themselves.) I had painted International Coffee Cans black as well and we sponged a star on those with some snowy dots and that is where all our little ornaments go until their number comes up! That's it - very easy and very inexpensive. You don't even have to buy the little packages of foam shapes if you really want to keep the cost down. The first time I made this I just used circles of foam to look like round ornaments and a star for the top of the tree. Other than a 97 cent cookie sheet you might have everything else on hand.

FYI - 36 days 16 hours 10 minutes and 10 seconds from this post until Christmas!!