Let the count down begin, another holiday is on the way!

Advent calendars can be a fun way to count down to any holiday or special event. They can be for persons from all faiths and completely customized to be as elaborate or simple as desired. They are a great way to ensure some special family time is carved out each day during this busy season. They are also helpful in teaching young children the concept of time, patience and counting. Now, if your interested in doing this with your kiddos, it's not too late to get your together! Here's a couple great crafty websites I love, The Crafty Crow and One Pretty Thing complies projects from all over the web. If your short on crafty ideas or looking for inspiration definitely head to these two websites first!

Idea #1-Since my kiddoes are little, I like to make our advents fun and family oriented. One year, I decided to wrap Christmas/Winter themed storybooks and each night the boys got to open one and we read it for bedtime. Our Christmas/Winter theme book library is limited so I decided to make it a 12 day advent.

Idea #2-For a fun crafty advent, I had my oldest paint a 22 x 28 poster board cut out Christmas Tree shape, green. I also cut out 25 different shaped ornaments from the leftover poster board scraps. Each day I would give him a cut out ornament shape to "decorate" using crayons, glitter & glue, paint, etc. something different each night. Once he was done decorating the cut out, we would place it on the green cut out tree, saving the star cut out for last. *If I can find pictures I will upload there here*

  Easy Idea #3- Head out to a Hallmark store and pick up one of these magnetic advent calenders. Its a metal sheet with magnets on the back and 24 little holiday theme magnets. Once you get it home cut little slips of paper and write out 24 special actives you would like to do with your kiddoes tape or glue one to the backside of each magnet.

Now if you would like to DIY this, it's very easy to make, all you need is a is a cheap dollar store cookie sheet, acrylic paint, or scrapbook paper, business card magnets and fun holiday themed pictures from cards, and a little creativity!