There is no other way to Countdown to Christmas than with a piece of Yummy chocolate each day. Have fun with it and turn an ordinary egg carton and some cotton balls into a Santa Advent Calendar. The kids will love to open the flaps on his cotton ball beard each morning to find their fun candy surprise, while counting down to the big day at the same time!
If you’re anything like me, you save all of your recyclables. Egg cartons, TP rolls, All.Of.It. Well, it’s the Holiday season and now it’s their time to shine! First up is this DIY Egg Carton Santa Advent Calendar for kids.
Kids love to make AND eat the chocolate from the DIY Santa Advent Calendar
My Twins just love to open up the egg carton candy cups each morning to find their fun chocolate surprise. For the 24 days leading up to Christmas, they get to defy all laws of healthiness and eat chocolate before breakfast. It’s a dream come true for any 9 year old really. But it’s just not as fun to buy those pre-filled cheap chocolate ones . Plus, the chocolate inside isn’t nearly as good!
Bonus, this Santa Advent Calendar is fun to make! We did use an X-acto knife to cut the slots out of the egg carton, so if you choose to go that route I recommend an adult does the cutting, because those suckers can be dangerous. You could totally cut the egg cartons with scissors as well, I just found it easier to cut them while the boys painted Santa’s face. They were happy enough with that and then gluing Santa’s cotton ball beard. Win-Win!
The best part about this DIY Advent Calendar, as compared to the store bought ones, is no more sibling rivalry over who is going to get the candy (or no more having to buy 2!), because each egg cup is able to fit more than one piece of candy or chocolate. Score!
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Supplies needed to make a DIY Kids Santa Advent Calendar
- Egg cartons – 2 packs of 12
- Cotton balls
- White foam board – (you could also use cardboard)
- Red Felt
- Googly eyes
- Red craft pom pom
- Light peach paint
- Glue
- Candy for filling!
- Box cutter or scissors
You could get creative and use whatever you have on hand to make this Santa Advent Calendar with the kids, so don’t worry if you don’t have all of the supplies! You can use cardboard instead of foam board. You can paint Santa’s hat red if you don’t have red felt, and you can use anything red for his nose. Santa won’t care.
How to Turn an Egg Carton into a Santa Advent Calendar with Chocolate Countdown to Christmas
Follow along below as I show you how we made this adorable egg carton Advent Calendar with a Cotton Ball Beard for Santa to store his candy!
First, place the 2 packs of empty egg cartons onto your foam board where Santa’s “beard” will be, leaving room above to draw his face and hat.
Next, trace the outline of Santa’s face and his hat. You can make him as big or small as you like, and it doesn’t have to be perfect. As you can see in the below pic, we pulled up a picture of a cartoon Santa on our tablet, and used that as a guide for how to draw him.
Now paint his entire “face” a light pink or peach color. Here you can also paint his hat red, if you don’t want to use felt. Otherwise, trace the shape of Santa’s hat onto red felt and cut that out and glue it onto the foam board.
*ADULT SUPERVISION REQUIRED FOR THIS STEP* I would suggest that an adult does this step altogether, especially if you are using an X-acto knife, but if you are making this Santa advent calendar with older children they could complete this step with regular scissors too.
Cut a slit about 3/4 of the way around the top of each egg carton cup, leaving a little bit attached to act as a flap or a little swinging door to hold the chocolate candy inside the advent calendar.
Glue 1 cotton ball to the top of each egg carton cup, for a total of 24. 24 days until Christmas!
Glue the cotton ball covered egg cartons onto the foam board in place of Santa’s beard, and glue one more cotton ball at the tip of his hat.
Our DIY Kids Santa Advent Calendar is coming together!
Now, it’s time to make his face. Glue on the googly eyes, red craft pom pom nose, and some more cotton balls around his face to complete his beard. Finish it off with some more cotton balls around the bottom rim of Santa’s hat.
Use scissors, or an adult can use an Xacto knife to cut off the extra foam board from around the Santa Advent Calendar, leaving just Santa and the egg carton candy cups.
Now for the most exciting part of making this entire DIY Kids advent calendar….filling it with candy or chocolate! Put one (or 2 or however many kiddos you have) pieces of chocolate into each egg carton cup. We had to cut a piece of cardstock the size of the egg carton to put in inside so the candy didn’t flop around, but you may not have to do that depending on the type of egg carton you have. Even if the candy moves around, it’s no biggie.
Put the finishing touches on this egg carton advent by writing numbers 1-24 onto a piece of paper, and cutting them out and gluing them to each cotton ball to complete the official Countdown to Christmas.
I must say, this was one of the most fun projects we have completed, and now we can use this DIY Advent Calendar year after year! I hope you have a blast making this Santa Calendar, and your kiddos enjoy eating chocolate before breakfast for the month of December too!
Make sure to check out our other Christmas Crafts to get in the Holiday spirit.
Tis’ the Season!
Fa la la la la
Ho Ho Ho!
*all the things*
Until Next Time…
Stay Crafty San Diego!
If you love this DIY Kids Egg Carton Santa Advent Calendar, PIN it for later or next year!
