12 Days of Halloween

I love advent calendars. I love counting down the days - especially when I get to do something fun on each of those days!

But I don't have a ton of storage space in my house, so I had to come up with something that would save room when it came time to pack it away.

I decided to use an ordinary muffin tin as my base, and I made 12 circles to cover each of the compartments. I debated on using my mini muffin tin, but my hubby said it was better to use the regular sized one so I could add a piece of candy for everyone inside. I scrapbooked and laminated my circles because I want to be able to reuse them, but you could just as easily cover your muffin tin in orange or black tissue paper and let your kids punch out the compartments each day.

I stuck my circles on with removable adhesive putty.

I also made up a list of fun "Halloweenish" things to do to get in the spirit. I printed it on orange paper, cut each idea apart from the others, and stuck one in each compartment. I also made sure it was general enough that we could reuse the list every year.

Here's some ideas:

• Make a Spooky Gingerbread House
• Paint or Carve Pumpkins
• Watch a Scary Movie (Check out this list of Not-So-Scary Children's Movies)
• Go to a Halloween Party!
• Bake a Halloween Treat
• Play with SLIME!
• Go to a Corn Maze
• Barnyard Boo at Thanksgiving Pointe
• Make a Halloween Craft
• Visit the Cemetery (reverently visit and learn about relatives)
• Go on a Halloween Scavenger Hunt
• Eat Pumpkin Quesadillas for lunch
• Drink Halloween Hot Chocolate
• Make a Pumpkin Mosaic
• Play with slime
• Make brain jello
• Visit a pumpkin patch
• Play with Halloween Ice Ghosts in the sink
• Paint/carve pumpkins
• Go to a Halloween party
• Make pumpkin luminaries