So how was your Thanksgiving? Did you brave the crowds to get any Black Friday deals? Our Thanksgiving was super low-key - it was just the four of us gathered around the table (three of us in our PJs which we didn't get out of all day - heaven!). And instead of hitting the stores on Friday, we dug out all of our Christmas boxes and started in on decorating our house. One of the first things we put up was the advent calendar that I made for the kids this year using the cutest mini galvanized buckets:
It was time for an upgrade from the Trader Joe's 99¢ Chocolate Advent Calendars that we've had the past several years :-)
It all started with these mini galvanized buckets that I found at Walmart - at only about 2" high, they are just about the cutest little things ever! You can search for them in your local Walmart store {here} or you can find similar ones on Amazon.
Most of what I used to label my buckets came from this Heidi Swapp "Believe" Scrapbook Paper Pad that I picked up at Michael's:
Two of the pages in the scrapbook pack have black and white numbers surrounded by circles - I cut out the numbered circles and then cut out 2" circles from patterned Christmas papers. If you have a 2" circle paper punch it makes it all the more easy.
Then it was as simple as adhering the numbers to the patterned paper and then adhering the patterned paper to the buckets. Since the paper has to curve around the bucket, you need to use a pretty strong adhesive - a glue gun did the trick for me.
I had bought a live tabletop tree at Stop & Shop earlier in the week - creating the advent tree was as simple as adding some lights, hanging the buckets from its branches, and then putting a few goodies in each bucket:
Others have little trinkets like rainbow loom bands:
I also wanted there to be a few surprises so in some of the buckets, I put a note (the paper for the notes came from one of the pages in the scrapbook paper pad) with a clue about where in the house they could find that day's little present.
My girls are so excited to start counting down to Christmas!
It was easy advent calendar to create but if you want to make it even easier, you can buy numbered stickers to put on the buckets or paint the numbers on the buckets with a paint pen. And you don't even have to have a tabletop Christmas tree - you can just scatter the buckets around your big one!
I can't believe how close it is to Christmas - with each day my girls are getting more and more excited that Christmas is almost here, I'm getting more and more worried about getting everything on my to-do list done. How about you? Don't tell me you're one of those enviable people who is already finished with all of their Christmas shopping and decorating....
