Homemade Advent Calendars: Filled with Love!

I finally managed to squeeze in a bit of crafting this weekend. I made Advent Calendars for the kids from mini-muffin tins. Theye are easy to make, but tedious when making three. In hindsite, I would probably make just one, and let the kids share. This would be do-able since this will hold an activity and story of Christmas with about 2 sentences of the story per day, leading up to Christmas. But, alas, they have their own calendars.

I used my Cricut Expression for the squares and numbers. If you don't have a Cricut machine, you could use a 2 in square punch for the smaller layered squares and a 2 1/2 inch square punch for the bottom layer. You can use, and I recommend using, stickers instead of Cricut cut numbers. Another option would be to use the negative image from Cricut cut letters.

Then I used magnet strips. I found these at Michael's and found they worked best.

I needed two packages for each set, and just cut them to size, placing one piece on each corner of the card. If you are not putting candy in the spot, you can probably get by with one piece of magnet for each card. In case I used candy, I wanted the card to be strong enough to hold it in there.

Most of the tasks were easy enough for my 5-year-old to take part in. The hardest was gluing the cut out numbers to each card because I chose a small, skinny font. You can make this easier by using a thicker font, or eliminating the gule altogether with alpha-stickers.

The end result was prefect!