practiceblissful55: Halloween Countdown

Halloween is just around the corner and the kids are excited I'm sure. My little bug is too young to feel the excitement of loads of candy approaching! To help kids know how much longer until they can indulge in chocolate goodness, I've made a Halloween countdown. Here is a Gibson original!

I'm so excited with how it turned out and I love that I came up with the idea all by myself. I even figured out how to print in a circle and everything. Here is a basic list of what you will need to make your very own Halloween countdown!

Orange paper (apparently some cardstock is too thick to print on so be careful)
Black paper
Stove burner cover (can by them in a 2 pack at Dollartree I used the smaller one.)
Black Paint
Ribbon
Magnet sheet
Hot glue gun
Mod Podge (click to learn how to make your own)

Sorry, I didn't take pictures along the way

First thing to do is paint your stove burner cover black. At first I just painted the edges, but it helps the paper stick if you paint the whole thing. It took 2 coats.

While that is drying you can print out your Days until candy paper. I can't figure out how to link the template I created, so if you want to use mine, email us at ourdiydiaries@gmail.com and I will email you the template. Or you can send us a message on Facebook.

Or you can make your own. In openoffice use the Fontwork gallery and type in what you want it to say, then change the shape to a circle. And mess with it until it's what you want it to be. Sorry I can't have it be easier for you!

Ok so print it out on an 8 1/2 x 11 piece of orange paper. Then trace the paper around the burn cover. Then cut. It helped to cut a little smaller than the actual cover.

Once the paint is dry you can mod podge the orange onto the cover. Here is where you may want to make changes. My ink smeared a little bit. I'm not sure it there is anything you can do to make it not smear. So you may want to just glue it on or something? Or maybe just do mod podge behind the paper and not on top. It's up to you. Or as you can see in the picture it's not that noticeable.

Next you can cut out your numbers from the orange paper. I don't have a fancy cricut machine so I just went to my local scrapbook store and used their die cuts. I did 1 1/2 inch numbers 0-9 and did 1-4 twice so you could make 11, 22 etc. (I only did #4 twice because it was on the same die cut. I don't see me ever counting out more than 31 days, but who knows.)

Next cut your black paper into squares. I cut them into 1 1/2 x 2 inch squares. Then glue your numbers to your black squares.

Cut your magnets and stick to the back of your black squares.

Then bunch a knot around your main ribbon with multiple ribbons. There is a trick where you only tie one ribbon and just lay the others inside the knot.Hopefully I can explain it.

Lay out one ribbon down and lay the others on top of it. Then tie the bottom ribbon around your main ribbon.

It will look something like this except around your main ribbon...

Like this.

Then when that is done hot glue your ribbon to the back of the cover. The cool thing about this is all the extra numbers stick to the back of the cover. I would suggest storing in a ziplock bag when storing over the year.