Cheaper Lego Advent Calendar

My boys love Legos. Let's face it, all kids love Legos. And with a Lego Store in town, we go there quite a bit. We take advantage of the free monthly mini-builds. We go to their free workshops. We love doing Lego on the cheap. The problem is that once you are in the store, they try to get you to buy expensive Lego sets.

In November, the Lego Advent Calendar came out. And of course both of my boys want one. But at a price tag of over $25, I couldn't afford one, let alone two. But sitting on the bottom shelf was the cutest little Christmas sets for only $6.49 each. That is a price tag I could handle.

So I bought two different sets for my boys. One was a town square with a large Christmas tree. The other had a cute train. They both had some matching shops so the sets would go together.

A trip to Hobby Lobby gave me a cute cardboard advent box. And bonus, it was 50% off. I took it home along with some small plastic zip top bags used for jewelry. I scored those with my 40% off coupon. And now I was ready to get crafty. I dug out my Modge Podge and some Christmas Scrapbook paper and got to work.

I cut out paper strips to cover the back and sides of the larger box. I painted the inside of each box and the support pieces. Then I carefully cut out different paper to cover each drawer. I used my larger circle punch to cut out a complimentary color for each drawer. And I used some number stickers to put numbers 1-25 on the drawers. I used the Modge Podge to cover the entire project and to protect the paper. I set this all aside and got to work on the Lego part of the project.

I opened the instruction booklet for each set. I placed the pieces to complete one or two pages in a tiny plastic baggie. Then I labeled the bags with the page number. I also had to write my sons' names on the bags so they would know which bag belonged to them.

When everything was ready, I placed each baggie in one of the drawers. Now it was ready to go. My boys had a great time opening the different drawers to see what they were going to build. And now I have this great Advent box to use each year.

I think it turned out pretty good...don't you agree?