Dilema #1:
I found myself with 2 boys who loved their LEGO Advent Calendar last year and wanted another one this year. I however couldn’t muster up the courage to spend $45 on the one they really wanted nor $30 on the less liked one.
Dilema #2:
After cleaning out my homes coat closet I found a couple dozen mismatched gloves and mittens. I mean how many pairs can a family of 6 have?? Too many!!! I guess you know kids…they lose matches faster than one can buy replacements. My boys are now of the understanding if they lose the match they will, WILL, wear mismatched ones. After playing the matching game I found myself with a heap of umatched and extra pairs.
What to do…
And then it struck me. I could make my kids an advent calendar we can use each year…for pretty cheap! I was thinking about the cute sock ones I had seen online. Problem is that we seriously don’t have cute socks. Umm, boys socks are really just athletic ones. How many boys do you see where fancy Christmas ones or even pink, green, or red ones??? So my disappointingly ugly idea quickly transformed into a spectacular one.
Thank goodness my mom has a basement full of cute crafting leftovers that she so kindly shared a couple of years ago. To create the calendar I honestly didn’t have to buy much more than the mini clothes pins and 3M Command hooks. By the way, mini clothes pins are just that MINI! They are barely an inch long but they have the best springs on them.
I would say it turned out pretty darn cute. The “rope” is just twisted up pipe cleaners. I simply started twisting in the middle of the red pipe cleaner. This left half of the white one for me to twist with another red one. It also left enough on each end to create a loop to put on the wall hook.
I decorated most of the gloves just because they didn’t look super Christmas/wintery. I also added hand cut numbers to each one. I would say I spent a good 2 hours creating but it was time well spent.
The boys were super excited about this project especially since now they will each get a small item/candy each day. With the LEGO calendar they each could only open every other day. Damon had odd numbered days, Mason even numbered days and then there was the prospect that Lincoln and Preston may want to help too 🙁
Now to fill with goodies!