Christmas Countdown! (yes, I am starting early!)

Well, I saw this idea and decided to try it for myself.
My kids are allowed to eat a piece of Halloween candy after every meal for the first week after trick or treating. Well, even with three boys and myself and hubby snacking, that leaves A LOT of leftover candy. I thought this would be a great way to use it all up.

I used the following materials:

plastic cups from the $1 store (I could not find paper cups big enough to hold 3 pieces of candy in each)
bristol board
tissue paper
white glue
paint brush
stamps and stamp pad
glue gun

First, I had the boys use green and red ink and stamp all over white tissue paper.
I then cut it into squares that would cover the top of the cups.
I numbered each square with black marker.

Next, I laid out all of the cups and shoved (yes, shoving was required for some of the larger candies lol!) 3 candies in each cup.
I should point out that I first sorted the candy. By sorting, I mean I made sure that each cup had 3 pieces of candy that were EXACTLY the same to alleviate any arguing that would definitely occur should any sort of differences be spotted in said pieces of candy.

Once the cups were filled (we needed 48) I painted a tiny bit of white glue onto the edge of each cup. I did 10 at a time. Then, I place a piece of tissue paper on top of each cup.

I then used a glue gun to attach each cup to the bristol board. I started at the bottom (lengthwise) with the last number and worked my way up counting backwards. I didn't measure anything and sort of just hoped for the best.

Once all the cups were glued onto the bristol board I gently carried it over to the large corkboard in the school room and used about 100 thumbtacks to hold it all in place.

I added the words "days until Christmas...." using cute fonts and used double sided tape to attach it and cover up some of the thumbtacks at the same time.

Now, here's how the boys will use our Countdown board.....
Each day they "punch" through the tissue paper on one of the cups.... we still have to work out the turn taking but there were no battles this morning so I think I will let them work it our on their own :)

So now I have a way to use up all of the Halloween candy (no waste), save money because I don't have to by those piddly little advent calendars from the $1 store and the kids LOVE it!

Make one of your own using the tutorial link above or have fun trying different things to make it work for your family like I did!

Here is our finished countdown.....