I've made an advent calendar before. Spent lots and lots of time making all those cute little boxes. Hung it up on the wall and everything. Only got through about day 4 before I was bored with it and the kids were uninterested. However, they do like to change the days on the perpetual calendar as a way to countdown until the day Santa comes. So I decided to create this little diddy. It is a Bingo Board of sorts. Each day, I will call out one of the words in the 25 squares and they get to cover it with a magnet (the magnets are all around the perimeter of the circle). They will know how many more days until Santa by counting how many empty squares they have. They "bingo" when the entire board is filled....that will be Christmas Day. They may end up getting another "bingo" accidentally before the entire board fills up. We may have a special prize for them if they do so.
This is super easy to make! All you need is a Pizza Pan. I got mine for $3 from the dollar store and it is 12 inches. I could have painted the pan first and I debated doing so, but decided to just leave it as is. I chose to use the December Details products by Bella Blvd. because, well, I'm just in love with them! I won the entire line off of the Bella Blog and was anxious to break it open.
1) There are 5 papers in that line so I cut one 2x12 inch strip from each one. I then cut the strip into 2 inch sections making 6 2x2 squares. I used 5 from each pattern paper and created a grid. I rounded the 4 corners so they fit into the pizza pan circle nicely.
2) Before I adhered them all down, I distressed and black inked the edges so that each square would be defined.
3) Next, I added word stickers, die cuts and stamps that related to the holidays. These are the same words that I will put on pieces of paper to call out each day.
4) The magnets were next. I used buttons, premade flowers, brads, stickers....anything that I could find that would work. I also made some paper and crocheted flowers. I LOVE all the fabulous flower-making tutorials out there and put several into use for mine.
5) Now all that is left is the embellishing. I used the alpha stickers that came in the December Details and put them onto black cardstock before cutting them out. I used the Crop-A-Dile to put the holes into the pizza pan to add my ribbon.
I think the board looks great with the magnets all line up around the edges. Here are some close ups:
And here is what the board will look like with all the words covered:
I hope this inspires you to make one of these magnet boards. I'd love to see yours if you do create one!
