Adult Advent Calendar

Hi,

Growing up, one of my favorite parts of Christmas was the advent calendar. My family had several that ranged from the grocery store chocolate to adding an ornament to a small tree. The advent calendar helped build the anticipation and magic of the season and I loved it.

However, as an adult, that grocery store chocolate just doesn't taste as good as I remembered and space is limited in our house for a bigger calendar. Plus, Rob was not very interested in participating and it was just not as fun by myself.

So, when I saw an idea for an adult advent calendar on Pinterest using lotto tickets, I knew that I needed one for my house.  It's only been two days, but my husband and I both look forward to the moment when we get to pull a ticket from the calendar. Plus, we have already won $7 :)

Here is what you will need:

• 24 $1 scratch off lottery tickets - I did 12 Lucky 7's and 12 Jingle Bucks
• 2 $2 scratch off tickets for Christmas day - Jumbo Jingle Bucks
• Foam Core
• Glue Gun
• Paper or cloth for the pockets - I used burlap
• Paper for the numbers on the pockets (optional)
• Sharpie 

*Note: I used burlap because I had it. If I were to do this again, I would use something else that would be a little neater.
First, lay out the lottery tickets in a formation that you like.

Next, use the cloth or paper to measure an appropriate pocket size.

Cut the material into 24 pockets. For me, the Jumbo Jungle Bucks for Christmas day were bigger than the other tickets, so it needed a bigger pocket.

After I had cut all of the squares for the pockets, I cut some squares of paper. I glued the paper squares onto the burlap pockets.

The next step is to write the numbers 1-24 on the smaller pockets and write 25 on the bigger pocket.

Once I had written all of the numbers, I used a hot glue gun to secure the sides and bottom of the burlap to create the pockets.

Don't worry, I did not actually hot glue on my table.

After all of the pockets were glued to the board, it was time to put the lottery tickets in.

Here's what it looked like once all of the tickets were in place.

The next thing that I had to figure out was where I was going to keep our advent calendar. I found these magnets that I had gotten for another project.

I put them on the back of the foam core like so.

I ended up using 5 of the magnet squares, but I got it to stay on the side of our refrigerator. Here is the end product.

I hope that you enjoy this project and the advent season. Make it your own.

~Kate