Shhhhh.....Don't tell my children but I am really excited about the Advent Calendar that I made for them. I wanted to tell you about it because there may be time for you to pull this off for the Harry Potter fans in your house.
I was looking at Lego Advent Calendars for the upcoming season. I didn't like my options. Last year we had the
Lego City Advent Calendar. They loved it but I didn't think it was worth money. The problem with the
Star Wars Lego Advent Calendar is that only one of my four children really like Star Wars. I began wondering if I could make my own Lego Advent Calendar.
I started thinking about a Lego theme that all my children would love. Harry Potter was the first to come to mind. I immediately looked on eBay for Harry Potter Legos and started to watch auctions for minifigures and accessories. I quickly realized that it wasn't going to be cheap, so I decided to allow myself to spend up to $40 which was the cost of the
Star Wars Lego Advent Calendar at the time I began the project.
I won an auction for
10 Harry Potter minifigures for about $33. Then, I purchased a small lot of
Lego owls for about $3. I stayed within my budget but I needed to get creative to fill out the whole advent calendar. I used the
Lego Harry Potter Characters of the Magical World book as a guide to use pieces we already had in our collection to make Harry Potter-like accessories.
Check out what I did below.
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I found a spare package of envelopes and wrote Harry Potter-like numbers on them from 1 to 24. |
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I got out all the minifigures I purchased and accessories I made. |
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Then, placed them on the envelopes to determine when they would be chosen. |
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I sealed the envelopes. |
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Inside the envelopes were potion jars and cauldrons that I made. Also, I found a magnifying glass and a goblet from other Lego sets we already owned. |
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I made a mandrake from a barrel, a zombie head, and plant-like legos. |
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I made dementors from black hoods from the Darth Maul Star Wars character and some black fabric I had in the basement. |
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Here are the owls I bought with some extra wands and other accessories. |
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Harry's luggage cart was also idea from the book. |
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This is how I will display the Harry Potter Countdown to Christmas in our house starting December 1st. |
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I downloaded and printed the Hogwarts crest for the center of the countdown. |
I think my kids are going to love this. Just don't spoil the surprise!!