*STORY TIME*
Back in late October, my friend Debbie and I were discussing advent calendars and lamenting the fact that neither of us had the pleasure of ever having one when we were little. One of us jokingly suggested that we should make one for each other and it ended up actually happening! Since we're both poor post-collegiate students, we agreed on a budget of roughly $30 ($25 for actual gifts, ~$5 for tax/packaging) for 25 days worth of little gifts; this calculates out to about $1 allowance per gift. Setting a budget challenged us to both be frugal and creative with our purchases (not to mention excuses to explore the 99c Store, Dollar Tree, and Daiso!).
How do you allot $1 a day for gifts without being cheap or resorting to useless things that the recipient won't want/use? Make a wishlist! Both Debbie and I made wishlists of practical yet inexpensive gifts or snacks that we would enjoy receiving, in addition to making a "no-no" list of things we definitely do not need/want. I wanted to spend a little more on some gifts so I also chose to DIY a couple gifts that I hope she'll like!
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| Click to see our wishlists! |
Gift Ideas
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| Photo Credit: Kaboodle | Faith and Home | The Petit Cadeau |
Kids: small novelty toys/candy, Christmas Bible verses
Adults: Chocolates, trinkets, Christmas activity cards
To stay within the budget and to encourage environmental friendliness, I chose to package my advent calendar using completely recycled materials and crafty leftovers. This way I wouldn't have to spend on packaging materials, allowing a little more money for the cost of gifts. I will be posting with a one-day delay (gift for Day 1 will be posted on Dec. 2nd, Day 2 present on Dec 3rd, etc) to avoid spoiling the surprise in case Debbie's snooping around my blog ;)
I've been working on this practically all of November so I'm super excited! Today's tutorial features a DIY mailbox that I made to contain all the goodies to come! Get ready for 25 days of creative + recycled wrapping DIYs and gift-giving ideas!
(TL;DR: DIY ADVENT CALENDAR = 25 DAYS OF POSTS ABOUT RECYCLED WRAPPING + GIFTING = EXCITING EXCITING EXCITING)
