Children love advent calendars. It is a traditional way to countdown the days until Christmas. If you want a cute way to customize an advent calendar for your particular child, this one made of paper rolls is perfect! You can fill it with anything you want! You can even do a theme, like all little farm animals or all Barbie clothes.
Fillers could include:
- Small candies
- Lego minifigs
- Tsum Tsum mini Disney figures
- Mini pokemon character toys
- Hot wheels and toy cars
- Shopkins
- Jewelry
- Socks
- Finger puppets
- Animal erasers
What you need:
- 24 paper roll tubes close to the same size
TIP: You can collect paper towel tubes and cut them to size. You can also use wrapping paper rolls if you have some and of course, toilet paper rolls.
- Green cupcake liners
- One silver cupcake liner
- Glue gun and glue sticks
- Brown wrapping paper
- Wide gold ribbon
- Scissors
- Number stickers
TIP: Whatever number stickers pack you choose, make certain you purchase enough to create all the numbers from 1 – 24
Instructions:
Step 1: Line up your paper rolls as shown in the photo. You need 24 rolls total. 3 rolls on the bottom as the trunk of the tree, 6 on the first row, and one less for each consecutive row to the top.
Step 2: One at a time for 20 of the rolls, add a zig-zag of glue around one end of the paper rolls. While the glue is hot, place a cupcake wrapper on the end of the tube and squeeze it gently so that one end is covered.
TIP: It works well to do them all at once and put them back in order as you go.
Step 3. Cover the top roll with a silver metallic cupcake wrapper to represent the star.
Step 4. Cut brown paper in small squares to cover the last three rolls that will act as the trunk of the Christmas tree.
Step 5: Now that everything is covered you are ready to assemble. Using the hot glue gun and glue sticks, make a line of glue on the areas of the rolls that touch each other until the entire tree and all the rolls are connected.
Step 6: Using your number stickers, number the rolls 1 – 24 as shown in the photo with the number 1 starting at the trunk and the number 24 at the “star”.
Step 7: Using the brown paper, cut a strip that is just a little shorter than the width of the paper rolls and that wraps all the way around the tree with a bit of overlap to secure the paper.
Step 8: Use the glue gun to attach the strip of paper to the outside of the tree.
Step 9. Take the wide ribbon and wrap it around the tree leaving enough length at the top to tie a generous bow.
Step 10: Turn the tree over and fill the rolls with the treats and gifts. Use cut squares of the brown paper to stuff into the holes to hide the gifts.
Each night your child will poke a hole in one of the rolls to countdown to Christmas! Begin on roll number 1 on the first day of December and continue on through the month until your child opens the last one on Christmas eve.
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