25 Days of Palmer®
Count down the days to Christmas with Palmer. Fill this fun Advent calendar with Palmer candy and enjoy some naughty or nice chocolate each day.
Supplies
- 1 bag of Palmer® Caramel Santas
- 1 bag of Palmer® Peppermint Patties
- 1 bag of Palmer® Double Crisp Discs
- 1 mesh bag of Palmer® Double Crisp® Coal
- 1 mesh bag of Palmer® Milk Chocolate Coins
- 1 cork board 23″x35″
- 25 small brown bags
- 1 pack of color push pins
- 1 pack of white doilies
- 2 packs of number and letter stickers
- 2 sheets of glitter scrapbook paper
- 1 spool of ribbon
- 1 spool of silver string
- 1 pack of craft Christmas bulbs
- 1 pack of mini clothes pins
- 3 tubes of paint (blue, white, and glitter)
- 1 paint brush
- 1 print out of decorative images (pdf)
- Christmas craft decorations
- Scissors & glue
NOTE: Children should be supervised by adults when creating this craft.
Directions
Step 1
Paint the corkboard to resemble the sky using the white paint for clouds and glitter paint for stars. Allow the board to dry completely. Once dry, glue on your doilies to resemble snowflakes. You can make your own snowflakes by cutting out round pieces of paper, folding twice and cutting out shapes as an alternative to the doilies. Also cut out the moon and Santa image (pdf) and glue to the bottom right hand corner of the board.
Step 2
In order to fit all 25 bags, the brown bags will have to be reduced in size. This gives you the opportunity to make different size bags for a more fun and quirky look. To do so, cut off the bottom portion of the bag and cut along the sides of the bag right down the middle fold. You should now have 3 pieces in front of you. Discard the bottom piece in the recycling bin. Take one of the remaining pieces and make a dart on both sides to shorten the width to desired size (this is the step where you can change the width of each bag to make them all slightly different in size). Glue down the dart. Cut the other piece so that it fits the same width. Place that piece behind the flaps and glue shut. Fold the bottom twice or more to change the height of the bag (again this is where you can change the height size of each bag to make them all slightly different in size). Glue down that fold.
Repeat for all bags.
Step 3
Now it is time to layout the corkboard to fit all 25 bags and know where to place the string. But first, we need to name our calendar. With your letter stickers, spell out Days Till Christmas at the top of the corkboard. Once that is completed, lay all 25 bags on the board into 5 rows (5 bags per row). With pins, mark where the string should go for each row. Remove the bags and cut string to fit the width. Pin the string in place—the pins represent colorful Christmas lights. It does not have to be perfectly straight lines. Once all the rows of string are in place, tie on your light bulbs to add to the idea of the pins being colorful Christmas lights.
Once all the bags are decorated and dry, fill them with 2–4 pieces of Palmer® candy. And fold down the top to close the bag.
Step 4
Decorate each bag with doilies (snowflakes), decorative images (pdf), glitter, glitter scrapbook paper cut out like light bulbs or stars, silver bells and Christmas buttons left over from your Candy Ornaments (see craft), ribbon, etc. Don’t forget your numbers. Place the appropriate numbers on each bag 1–25. Have fun, this is your time to be creative and customize each bag. Make sure your 25th day is the largest of the bags so that it covers the image of Santa in his sleigh, making it a surprise behind that candy bag that Santa has arrived.
Step 5
To finish your calendar, write a fun message on the moon next to Santa and attach all the candy bags to the string with mini clothes pins. Now your calendar is ready for display. Hang it on a door or wall and let the fun begin in counting down the days to Christmas with Palmer®.
