When Is Christmas? Advent Calendar Time! {Mama Kat's Writing Workshop}

A favorite question around here begins with, "When is...?"  Insert any holiday, birthday, big trip, small trip or next meal or snack and that is the story of my life.  Probably a very similar story to lots of moms out there.  A never ending countdown to the next biggest thing when all I want to do is relish that tomorrow is Friday, nothing more. 

Never before have I done an Advent Calendar with the kids, but I have been stricken with the craft bug lately, thanks to Pinterest (mwah).  So when I saw Mama Kat's writing prompt,  3). The first of December is upon us! Describe an Advent Calendar or a special way you count down days until Christmas (past or present). (Inspired by Classy Chaos). 

What did I do next?  Well, I went to Pinterest and started looking for advent calendar ideas, of course, and found the most perfect one for me to try from the lovely ladies at eighteen25.  It didn't look terribly complicated, or require wrapping 25 individual items.  Score!  The next day I went to my local craft store and stocked up on supplies. I think out the door I spent $15 to make this calendar.  That price is a testament to my craft beginnings - I didn't even have Mod Podge (or know how to use it or what it was), or ribbon, or brads, or anything really. 

Down to business now.  Supplies gathered.  Before this picture I typed out the words "...days until Christmas" in a fancy font and attached red shiny rhinestones to the dot on the i's (instead of brads). 

Then I went on YouTube to see exactly how to do Mod Podge.  Good thing I did.  I was imagining something like paper mache - where one brushes the liquid over the TOP of the paper (which apparently you can do, but not for this project).  If you want to know how to Mod Podge, here's the video I watched:




Going for it now.  Yeah, that's Mod Podge right over the price tag of the clipboard and everything.  I'm crazy like that.

And then...I combined a few steps here.  My paper is adhered to the board now, and while I'm waiting for that to dry a little, I tied my bow.  A bow-maker, I am not.

A few more steps combined for the below picture.  I trimmed off the excess paper, used my Fiskars paper cutter that I had from my days of scrapbooking to trim down the red and the white paper and stuck those on with more Mod Podge.  I also used sandpaper to rough up (sand down?) the edges of the Santa paper.  I don't know why.  Because the girl in the video did it, I guess.  I don't think that's necessary, but it did clean up the edges a bit since I was hacking at the paper with scissors instead of something called a craft knife. 

Well, that's pretty much it!  I printed the days out, trimmed them up and clipped them on the board.  Snagged a plate holder and ta-dah!  Displayed! 

Lessons Learned  a.k.a. Tips For Next Time a.k.a. I Learned the Hard Way So You Don't Have To

• A craft knife would probably be very useful to cut the edges of the paper.or
• Buy 8.5 x 11"  scrapbook paper.
• Scoot the paper up to the top - underneath the clippy thing on the board - mine looks short and weird.
• Buy cardstock (for the red and the white paper) like the nice ladies at eighteen25 said in their instructions.  Sturdy.
• Consider buying one of those roll-y brushes that the girl used in the YouTube video.  Quite handy to get all the air bubbles out, I imagine.  I tried to do the same thing with a can of green beans.  The effect was not the same.

Happy December 1st!  24 more days until Christmas!

Do you do an Advent Calendar?  I showed you mine, now show me yours!