DIY Toy Advent Calendar

This year, I wanted to buy the kids an advent calendar. They have so many cool ones with little toys in them! But the bummer thing is that most of them are around $40. That, and I didn't really want to settle for the $2 ones with the waxy chocolates in them for 4 kids. 

So, as a third option, I decided to make one!

First, I found some cheap lego knock offs on amazon. We ended up going with a food set for $10 and an animal set for $12 since my kids don't actually have very many of those. With how many little pieces there ended up being, we could've just gone with one and used candy for more of the cups, since we added candy to a few along with the legos anyway.

To make the board, all I did was take a long piece of thick cardstock paper (a poster board or piece of cardboard would've been good too) and glued some wrapping paper to it. 

Then, I traced and cut out 24 holes for the cups to go in. 

After John and I filled the cups, we taped squares of tissue paper over the cups and labeled them from 1 to 24. We then hot glued them onto the paper.

Since it ended up being a little flimsy and couldn't stand up great on its own, I decided to hole punch two holes into the top and tie a ribbon so I could hang it. Another plus to that is that I can hang it out of reach of our 1 year old who's going to catch on very quickly that there's candy inside the cups!

I added a quick label with some more paper and two bows and it was done!

In the end, since we had all the supplies to make it on hand already, It cost us about $25 to make, although it would've been cheaper if we only used one set. Another idea I had was to make a separate one for Brooke using a $13 Barbie set but John wanted to try it out with only one calendar this year. And to be honest, I think Brooke will love the fun legos just as much as the boys anyway!

John and I are excited to see our kids faces as they find the little treats and fun things inside! And if I decide to make our own advent calendar again, I may just buy one of those reusable wooden ones... We'll see how this year goes! Either way, it was fun to make and I loved that it can be personalized based on the wrapping paper used! Definitely a fun gift for a friend in the future as well, even if we end up buying a wooden one next year!