Christmas Crafting

For the last few years, the time in between Thanksgiving and Christmas has seemed to fly by so fast that I don't have nearly enough time to enjoy it. This year I decided to jump right in so I can enjoy every second of the season. I put my Christmas tree up and decorations out a few days before Thanksgiving and even managed to create a few things of my own!

Growing up, I could not wait to change the number every morning on my family's Christmas countdown as we got a day closer to Christmas. I have always loved the idea of taking the countdown a step further with an advent calendar and am hoping to make it a tradition for my (future) family. There are so many free, printable activities and ideas on Pinterest so after a little perusing, I decided to go for it! With no direct plan in mind, I headed to Hobby Lobby. I was able to piece together some different materials I liked and luckily, everything I needed was 50% off and I was able to gather my materials for under $25! Here is how it turned out:

Material breakdown: 

• Framed burlap board- $20 - $9.99 
• Gold ribbon- $4.99 - $2.49
• 2 sets of 20 gold patterned craft sacks- $2.99 each - $1.49  Click here to see the patterns
• 5 sets of 12 gift tags- $1.99 each - $0.99 each - There were TONS of tags to choose from! I wanted a variety so I got 5 different ones but you could make all 25 the same or different!
• Mini clothespins- $2.99 - $1.49
• Number stickers- $1.99 - $0.99

TOTAL: $22.89

I used a framed burlap board and stapled on 5 rows of ribbon, evenly spaced. (The staples are covered up by the craft sacks).

I matched the gift tags to a pattern on the craft sacks since I had 5 different kinds of each. Next, I cut the strings off the gift tags and hot glued them onto the craft sacks. I arranged them how I wanted them on the board and pinned them onto the ribbon using the mini clothespins. When they were arranged to my liking, I added the number stickers to the bottom of the craft sticks. Super easy!

I am also a proud (somewhat new) owner of a silhouette portrait cutting machine! I bought my portrait 3 months ago and am still amazed at everything the machine can do. I am still a complete newbie and have just been exploring the design software and creating simple things for my classroom and home. While playing around with the software, I created a design that I (kind of) liked! I had my machine cut it out and I decided to pair it with some scrapbook paper that I had laying around. I couldn't decide which pairing I liked best!

 

Click any of the above images to download the silhouette studio design I created as a freebie!