advent calendar day 2...santa spotter

yesterday was the second day of our advent calendar...and rai made a santa spotter!!! so that on Christmas night, she can use it to help her see santa flying in the sky! you will need a paper towel roll, white glue, a piece of copy paper, and crayons, markers, glitter, etc for decorating! i think you may see were i'm goin here...so take your paper and decorate it...or in my case, have your 3 year old decorate it. like this (we used a yellow piece of paper b/c she insisted...if you use colored construction paper you will have to trim the ends...)

after decorating the front of your paper with the crayons and marker drawings...flip it over and spread glue all over the back of the paper (mom, you may want to do the edges)...

can you tell she liked the glue?   :)

after you get an agreeable amount of glue, line up your paper towel holder with the edges of the paper, hotdog style, and roll it around the roll, so that no paper towel roll is visible..

here you could add pompoms or glitter or whatever other dodads you want...however, my santa spotter went straight outside looking for that jolly lil elf...and everything else we own...

hope you like!!!

advent calendar, day 1

so we started our advent calendar today...and i decided to tell you guys what we did! :) i know you've probably seen it before on a paper towel roll or something, but i think everything is better with wine...well a wine bottle at least :) ok...so you will need a wine bottle, your favorite wrapping paper cut into one inch strips, and some scotch tape...i know you have all this stuff around your house...and if you have to drink a bottle of wine in the name of Christmas...well what better reason is there?

take your wrapping paper and cut it into strips...depending on the shape of your bottle, you may have to use different lengths to give you the desired shape...i used 8 inch strips on the bottom layer, 7 inch strips on the second layer, 6 inch strips on the third layer, and 5 inch strips the rest of the way up. (my wrapping paper had a grid printed on the back which made this task a lot easier to give you measurements for...if it wasn't marked i promise you i would NOT be sitting around making sure that i had perfect 6 inch strips :) haha lol have fun with this!!! my 3 yr old loved HELPING!!) :) ok, so take one strip at a time and fold it in half, without creasing it, tape both ends (with one piece of tape) near the bottom of the bottle about an inch from the bottom...

make a ring with the loops that goes all the way around the bottle. start your next layer about an inch above the bottom row...centering the first strip between 2 of the bottom ones (to stagger the strips). continue up the bottle like this...

when you get close to the top, take a 6"x6" piece of wrapping paper and fold it in half, then roll into a tube and tape to the rim of the bottle...

 

after it's taped, take one of your strips of paper and cover your "scar" where you taped the tube in :) then use a sharp pair of scissors, and to make slices around the tube making a little "fire-cracker" on top of your "tree." 

finish your taping your loops and display somewhere beautiful in your home!!  :)

hope you like!! :)