Cost

All the toys and candies and things were about $150, so very close to what I would have spent. The stick, felt, yarn, and iron-on, I already had so no cost there. The wrapping, screws, and shoe holder were purchased but I figure I won’t be buying those additional items every year moving forward.

Felt + Iron-on

I used Benzie Felt (Red, Blush, White, and Castle) and Cricut Iron-on (Red, Pink, Gold Foil and Silver Foil) to make all the number tags.

Wrapping

I found all the little embellishments at Michaels and the wrapping paper at Target.

Gift Items

This was so much fun! We have Pura Vida bracelets, bath bombs, candies, mini stuffies, tattoos, colored pencils, a mini notebook, a mini watercolor set, gum, window stickies, press on nails, cars, dinosaurs, a family game, chapstick, legos, play dough, pens, finger puppets, paper scratchers, magic towels… it’s safe to say I’ve been collecting these little things for 2 months.

Our youngest is 14m so some of these things she’s not getting.

Attaching The Branch

I’ve had this beautiful white branch in my office for a while and I knew I wanted to use it to hang the calendar. The husband recommended that I drill through the branch and attach to the shoe holder with screws, washers, and nuts because it was going to be heavy…

…let me tell you it worked perfectly. I used 1.25″ bolts and hand tightened them using my little wrench attachment for my driver drill.

Then I was able to tie 12 strands of yarn together and attach them to the branch. It hangs wonderfully (and sturdy), I’m super happy.

Tag Planning

First I designed the four felt tag styles, then I made myself a chart and swapped the colors of each one all the way to 24. After that I just followed the chart to make them all…. this took a while.

Click here to use my Cricut Design Space canvas and pre-designed numbers. Font is BFC Autumn Harvest. If you’re having trouble accessing it, make sure you’re logged into Design Space first.

Gluing On The Tags + Decorations

Hot glue was perfect for the task of attaching the tags to the shoe rack. I also glued on cute decorations here and there. I have very low expectations with a 7, 4, 3, and 1 year old that these little decorations will last, so I’ll just fix it up again cute and nice next year.

Wrapping

This felt like it took forever, LOL. Especially because on some days I added little things for me and my husband too.

Mom Trick: I spaced the gifts out with care and I wanted them to be opened on certain days. So on each gift I wrote the day it is to be opened. Mainly because my youngest is a terror and I fully expect her to take all the gifts out of the low pockets that she can reach.

Labor of Love

Yes this was a labor of love but I fully enjoyed it and I know that they will too.

Are you making one of these for your family or have you in the past? Any advice? I’m sure I’m going to learn a lot this year…