Murals and Calendars

Even though the kids are bigger, much of what is important to us all at holiday time remains home made.  KC wanted a Star Wars advent calendar this year.  I checked them out.  Store bought cost $40.00 if you could find them.  Yes, they have some little Star Wars toy each day.  But aside from knowing I would be stepping on little toys for 24 fun filled days till the dog ate them or Eldest Son vacuumed them up. . . well, I could not justify the price.  I love the kids being able to open something and mark the time till the big day.  But I don't love it enough for the price it was sold at.

So I decided I would make him an advent calendar.  I used the magic of the internet to find 25 pictures and phrases from the movies.  I popped them into my scrap book program so that I could size them down to what I needed.  I printed them.  I used the same scrapbook program to then print a 4 page picture "banner" (as seen above.

Then I just worked on the back of the picture and cut out the doors with an exacto knife and taped the picture there. Wrote the numbers on the doors with silver glitter paint and voila! A calendar for cost of paper and ink.  And a very happy boy.

I know it might not fly for some kids. But this guy is artistic and creative so he was thrilled by the idea that it was made by hand.

We also started our annual Christmas mural today.  KC's idea was to have Santa's workshop and have us all be elves.  One elf making toys, another baking etc.  Kirsty put up the paper last night and the drawing and painting has commenced. This is an exceptionally enjoyable activity because it is something anyone can add to when they have a few minutes and just want to do something to de-stress.  Every year I wonder if this is going to be the year that they roll their eyes and say how "over" these traditions they are.  And I am so very grateful that year has not yet arrived!