Advent Calendar

I had been wanting a cute advent calendar for a couple of years. We had used a cheap felt one from Walmart for a few years. It did the job okay, but it wasn't nearly as cute as I wanted it to be....so I decided to make my own Advent Calendar. I did a little research online, and I got a ton of inspiration from other blogs and from Etsy. I took a few of the ideas that I found and mixed them all up and came up with my own version of a Metal Tin Advent Calendar.

I hit up Hobby Lobby for

a canvas

wedding favor tins {you need 24 in all}

Christmas scrapbook paper

&

a painted star

I already had some stuff at home

fabric

rick rack

Mod Podge

&

hot glue

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I started by cutting out a lot of circle with my circle cutter...48 to be exact.
24 circle with numbers for the front of the tins and 24 unnumbered circle for the inside of the tins.

I applied a thin layer of mod podge to the inside of the tin and to the inside of the lid.

I place the unnumbered circles {pattern side up} inside the tins and Mod Podged them in place.
I put the numbered circles in the lids {with the pattern of the paper and the number showing through the front of the plastic} and then Mod Podged them into place.

I cut out a Christmas tree from leftover green and white polka dot fabric and used spray adhesive to attach it to the canvas. I also added a trunk to the tree made from a scrap of brown corduroy fabric. I finished off the edges of the tree by attaching some white rick rack around the edges with my hot glue gun. I also added a wooden painted star to the top of the tree. After all the Mod Podge was dry, I put the lids on the tins and hot glued them to the Christmas tree. I chose to attach my numbered tins in a straight line, but you could mix it up and glue them in a random pattern if you wanted.

On the last day of November, we load up our advent calendar with small treats and hang it in our hallway. Starting on December 1st my boys will get to remove the lid of one tin each day until Christmas {starting with number 25}. To make our advent calendar even more fun, I also place small pieces of paper with special Christmas activites {bake cookies, sing Christmas songs, wrap presents, watch a Christmas cartoon, read the Christmas story} for us to do in some of the tins.