CD Sleeve Halloween Advent Calendar

 I LOVE HALLOWEEN!!!

It's like the one time of the year when you get to act like a child and have an excuse to wear fake eyelashes. Because let's be honest...mother of three, the fake eyelashes thing is not happening unless it's a special occasion. (Can I get an 'AMEN'?!) I am lucky to even put mascara on most days.

Hocus Pocus, cheeky/spooky decorating, Michael Jackson-Thriller, pumpkins and candy. Seriously, its awesome! So in the spirit of the Halloween Season and with the mission of teaching my kids to celebrate and love holidays/traditions...I decided to do an advent for the month of October.

The pictures are so self-explanatory that I feel silly doing a tutorial for it...But here you go!

CD SLEEVE ADVENT CALENDAR

This project turned out super fun and FREE (except for the candy). You can even change the bat out for pumpkins or any shape or holiday really. I finished this whole project during a movie and I have two boys who ended up absolutely loving it! So the time you spend will be well worth their reaction and excitement.

Supplies

--black or kraft cardstock

--advent number printable

--scissors

--circle paper punchers (if you have them)

--cd sleeves 

--clothes pins

--glue stick and craft glue

--bat template

STEP 1 || Gather Supplies

Gather all your supplies together. Follow the links above for the print outs that I used. Martha Stewart (Bless her!) already had a perfect little bat printable in the size I wanted. I used the bigger bat on the printable and it was the perfect size. The smaller one would work too. You can find a pack of 100 white cd sleeves at Walmart for like $2 or $3. Super cheap. But I already had some. Circle paper punchers will save you a lot of time but if you are hard core...scissors work for cutting circles too. Clothes pins I had on hand and most people do. 

STEP 2 || Cut Out Bats, Circles & Numbers

For this next step...TURN ON A MOVIE! =)  Cutting out all this stuff is mindless but can get annoying if you don't have something distracting you. Start by punching out all your circles (31 black and all 31 of the advent numbers). I had a 1.75" and 2.25" punches that I used but any size you want would work just fine. 

Next take your bat template you cut out...and cut that sucker in half! You are going to be cutting your card stock on the fold to get a symmetrical bat.
In the words of Duck Tales, "WORK SMARTER, NOT HARDER."
This will save you so much time. Fold your cardstock and trace the bat on there with a pencil until you have 31. Then, grab your trusty scissors and start cutting out your bats. It took me about 40 min to trace and cut out all of them. Not too shabby.

STEP 3 || Glue & Attach Cut-Outs

After you are done cutting, pat your self on the back and glue your numbers to your black circles. Then attach those to your cd sleeves. I just used scotch tape and it worked great and gave it a little lift. After that take your craft glue and attach your bats to your clothes pins. Let them fully dry before moving them.

Step 4 || Fill Bags with Candy/Advent Activities

Fill your bag with candy and Advent Activities. I am going to write mine out and put the activities in daily cause I like to be flexible with what we do. There are tons of ideas and links for Halloween Advent Activities but below are some of my favorite. I am also going to do my boys a favor and not put candy in till the morning of as well. Just so they don't have 31 days worth of candy hanging and tempting them all throughout the days.

Halloween Advents and Riddles

31 Days of Halloween

Halloween Bucket List

31 Halloween To-Dos

Step 5 || Attach String for Hanging Bags

To attach my string I just used a staple gun and held it far away from the outside of the stone surround to make the strings hold up. Worked like a charm with minimal, almost unnoticeable damage to the wall.

And there you go! All done!

I am usually not a cute-sey, kitschy Halloween decorating person. I have two boys who love the gross spooky Halloween stuff it seems like but this had bats on it so they liked it.

I am excited to see the different versions of this that you guys come up with.

PS.....I have BIG plans for the ugly 70's stone surround! Can't wait to show y'all.