It started with an idea.

I was looking around Pinterest (as usual) and came across some amazing Advent Calendars. Being Jewish, we never experienced having these really fun and creative calendars in our home. I thought it would be so much fun for my kids to have something similar to celebrate Hanukkah. This all happened around the time that I found out about the Boys & Girls Club Projects for Great Futures campaign.

Elmer’s is working with the Boys & Girls Clubs of America to help out local Clubs during this holiday season. Elmer’s asked for craft entries which will be voted on to earn money for the Boys & Girls Clubs. Basically, for every vote, Elmer’s will donate $1.00 to the Boys & Girls Club of America. AND… the winner of the contest will get a $5,000 Walmart Gift Card and $1,000 worth of Elmer’s products donated to their LOCAL Boys & Girls Club. So what did I do? I entered the contest of course!

I started shopping for my supplies at Walmart. Take a look at what I bought HERE.

I had my grandiose idea and all my Elmer’s supplies. This is what I created.

I used the following supplies:

Elmer’s Tri-Fold Display Board
Elmer’s No-Wrinkle Dual Tip Glue Pen
Elmer’s 3-D Glitter Pens
Elmer’s Glue-All
1 yard of blue fleece fabric
8 1/2 x 11 pieces of felt (purple, pink, yellow, white)
Blue satin ribbon
Mini gift bags
Scrabble tiles
Craft tags
Push Pins
Assorted holiday stickers

You definitely need a lot of space to create this project. I made sure my dining room table was cleared so I had plenty of work space.

Gather your supplies. I ironed the fleece on a low setting to get the wrinkles and fold out of the fabric so it would lay flat.

Lay out your blue fabric with the Display Board on top of it, white side facing down. You should have a few inches overlap

Use the No-Wrinkle Glue Pen to glue the excess fabric to the back of the board. Pull tight on the blue fleece to make sure it is very taut on the front. This is the only glue I used to keep it connected to the board. I didn’t want to use glue on the front part to keep it from bunching up or seeping through in any way.

Glue down the fabric on all four edges at the back of the Display Board.

Turn the board over and it should look like this. You should have a smooth surface to work with.

Take your white (or color of your choice) felt and you are going to cut the 8 1/2″ x 11″ piece into 4 separate square pieces. Do this with 2 sheets of felt to get a total of 8 equal square pieces.

Lay out your 8 squares on the middle part of your Tri-Fold Board. Remember, you have three sections to work with.

Glue down 3 sides of the white felt squares using the Elmer’s Glue-All. Don’t glue down the top edge since these will be your pockets. I added a strip of blue satin ribbon to the bottom of the pocket just for added decoration. I used the Elmer’s No-Wrinkle Glue Pen for this so the ribbon wouldn’t wrinkle up.

I added a “Hanukkah” Embellishment that I had in my scrapbook supply collection at home. Using the 3-D Pens I drew numbers (1 - on the white pockets for the 8 days of Hanukkah.

Your board should look like this when the numbers are completed.

I thought it would be fun to have a menorah with candles so the kids could add a candle for each night. I simply cut out the felt pieces into the shapes I wanted. Because the felt automatically adheres to the fleece, you don’t need to glue anything down.

I had these little gift bags in my personal craft collection and thought they would be perfect for the “other” side of my board. I glued some scrabble tiles onto the middle of the bags. The “T” is for Temera, the “A” is for Amanda and the “L” is for Lauryn. My kids will each have a little gift bag (where I will put some little treat each day of Hanukkah).

Insert a push pin into the board and hand the bags.

I had my three sections complete but I added a few little embellishments to take it up a notch.

I had a bunch of Hanukkah stickers from last year that I used to decorate the menorah and the numbered pockets.

I took a few craft tags and wrote down some fun things to do. Each night one of the kids can choose a surprise tag.

The tags fit into each pocket and none of us will know which event is on what night.

The finished project.

The girls saw this and were overcome with excitement. They kept asking me what is going in the little gift bags and what are we going to do with all the numbered pockets. Shhhh… some things I’m keeping secret. I can’t wait until December 20th, the first night of Hanukkah so we can start using our new 8 Days of Hanukkah Calendar.

If you want to get involved in the Boys & Girls Clubs of America promotion with Elmer’s, you can create your own project using an Elmer’s Tri-Fold Display Board (can be a school project, holiday project or whatever you can come up with). Submit your project via email to ProjectsForGreatFutures@elmers.com. Submissions close on December 12th so you’ll have to hurry and get that project in.

Elmer’s will select 15 finalists based on originality and creativity and finalists can be voted for at www.GreatFutures.org/elmers. I’ll let you all know if I’m one of the finalists. Just so you know, if I am… I will be expecting lots and lots of votes!

This project has been compensated as part of a social shopper insights study for Elmer’s. All opinions are my own. #gluenglitter #collectivebias #cbias