Advent Calendar and Elf on the Shelf

I quit procrastinating today and actually made an advent calendar...since it will start today! I already had my activities planned out on note cards to put in the Letters From Santa Box but I decided I didn't want to do that anymore. Our boys are getting a little older and were skeptical about the box appearing and disappearing...so I'm going to do something different!

I started with a large sheet of green foam. I then printed this sign that I found on this blog. Her advent calendar is really cute too! Then I glued the sign to a piece of red foam that I had cut out.

Then I printed off these numbers. I used plain printer paper because it's all that I have but they would look better on white card stock!



I then cut out all of the numbers. I was going to use the whole box but my foam sheet wasn't big enough to keep them that size. I found my scrapbook scissors that have decorative cutting edges and used those to cut out just the number with a little of the color left around it.

 

After I had all of the numbers cut out I wrote an activity on the back of them and arranged them on the foam sheet.

Then I took the ribbon and glued it to the back of the foam sheet so that I could hang the calendar up! And that's all it took....somewhere in between the two pictures the number 24 came off and I can NOT find it...I do believe it got up and walked away!

Also today our Scout Elf Ollie Elfkins showed up! I went to pick the boys up from school and when we got home he was sitting on the Christmas Tree with his Elfing License, a letter from Santa, and his Magic Elf Report.

The oldest boy (7) swears that I put the elf there but the other 2 boy (6 and 5) keep telling him there is no way because I have been at the school. They all keep telling each other that they have to be good or Ollie will tell Santa and they won't get any presents. Boys are too funny!

The boys and I are about to make homemade cookies. This is a first for me as well as them so we will see how it goes! If all goes well I will post the recipe pictures tomorrow!

Have a good evening!

Ashley