Counting Down the Days... (How to make a COuntdown Calendar)

By: Christina SzewczukSeptember 21, 2017The room is booked, the tickets are bought with decorated Magic Bands in hand, FastPasses and dining reservations have been made by your fabulous Wishes Family Travel Agent… You are on your way to Disney! But… there are still 30 more days. Now what? As the excitement mounts, there are a multitude of things you can do to make the wait a little more fun.One way is to make a Countdown Calendar. Here I am going to show you how to make this cute calendar. (Shown below!) Its easy and inexpensive to make. It can be as simple or as complex as you want it to be - there are no rules! You can dress it up with bows, rhinestones, glitter - whatever you can think of. As a great man once said “ if it can be dreamt, it can be done”. (That was Walt Disney in case you didn’t know.)Here is what you need:

• 1 frame, 5x7 or larger (I got this 5x7 one at a dollar store)
• 2 small suction cups
• 1.5 in hole punch
• Standard hole punch
• A few pieces of letter size cover stock (white or lightly colored so you can print the numbers on it)
• A piece of scrapbook paper or colored cover stock for the background (I recommend a one color piece so it isn’t too busy)
• Scrapbooking or printed images to decorate background (the ones pictured are from a scrapbook pack purchased at a craft store, but you can get some images online and print them too)
• Glue stick or spray adhesive

Directions:

1. Begin with the background piece. Cut it to fit the size of the frame, as you would with a photograph.
2. Take your decorative images and place them down to visualize how you want them. I made a graphic with some wording “Days Until Disney” and chose a few of the images in the scrapbook pack. Make sure to leave room for the suction cups and numbers to hang. They can be placed in the corner as shown or the center - wherever you think they look the best!
3. Once you lay it out the way you want it, glue the pieces down with the glue stick or spray adhesive. I do not recommend using regular school glue or a “glue all” type glue. Since it is wet glue, it usually creates wrinkles in the paper. Let dry for a while. Once dry, set it in the frame the way you would a photo and replace the glass.
4. You can count down from 99 to 0 with this calendar. So you need to make two sets of numbers with digits 0-9. I chose to do two different colors, one set of red and one set of blue, to add some more color. Type the numbers into whatever word processing program you use being careful to space them about 2”-2.5” apart so there is room above, next to and below each number. You want to leave ample room so that when you go to punch it out with the hole punch, you are not cutting into the other numbers.
5. Print the numbers out onto the cover stock and then punch them out using the 1.5” punch. Leave a little more space at the top so you can punch a hole with the standard punch for hanging on the suction cups.
6. Attach the suction cups to the outside of the frame.
7. Hang your numbers and enjoy!

My kids really liked this project. It was simple enough to hold their attention andwas relatively inexpensive to make. They loved taking turns changing the numbers. Ilet them do it at dinnertime to get them to come to the table!I would love to see how your calendars turn out! If you have any questions or problems or if you would like help booking your vacation, please contact me atChristina@WishesFamilyTravel.com. For fun, tips and Travel News, follow myFacebook page at www.facebook.com/cszewczuk.wft.