How to Make a Handmade Experience Box for Christmas

Since I started using the KonMari method on my home (yup, we are still doing that, more on that to come!) my family and I are less and less interested in receiving so many "things" for Christmas. When I was wracking my brain for a way to have a magical Christmas, but reduce the amount of physical items we were buying and possibly getting rid of in the future, I thought of making an experience box to pull from throughout the year. Check it out below!

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It came to me while I was making scrambled eggs one morning and I looked down at my now empty egg carton. With an egg carton having twelve sections to it, there was room to put twelve different activities to do each month of the year. I made some indoor activities for cold weather months, as well as some being outdoor activities for when it is nice out.

Since Lydia is still a little young to help me with crafts, I did the decorating this year, but in the coming years, I feel like this could be a fun craft for her (and any future children we have) to help with! It can be a fun gift for kids to make for grandparents, cousins, friends, or anyone else to give the gift of time.

Nowadays time is such a valuable resource that we are constantly strapped with, that being able to give the gift of spending time with someone can be incredibly powerful. Teaching children at a young age the value of time is equally important so that they realize how important spending time together is. With making a handmade gift, I think the lesson of taking time to make something for someone is a gift in and of itself.

Alright, enough with the preaching, let's get to crafting!!

To start this craft you will need an empty egg carton, decorative paper, plain paper, tissue paper, and tape/adhesive. I had a piece of plain cream colored paper under the decorative paper that is on top of the egg carton because at first I thought about putting on a few different kinds of decorative paper. Instead I went with one since I liked the look of the blue paper I found with the lights.

Take the egg carton, turn it upside down, and place it on top of the underside of the decorative paper or base paper you plan on using. Use a pencil to trace the top of the egg carton so that you can cut out that piece to attach to the top of the egg carton. Only use your adhesive for the parallel sections on the top of the egg carton so that you don't use tape in a place where there is nothing to stick to.

I added pieces of my decorative paper to the front, back and sides of the top of the egg carton as well to hide the Trader Joe's label. Measure out those pieces with a rule by height and width to make sure you get the right size.

On the top of the egg carton, I also added a piece of paper that says "Twelve Family Activities," making it a fun way to state what the intention of the gift is. You can add any wording you like on the top such as "2020 Noga Family Fun," "Family Fun Activities for 2020," or " Twelve Fun Experiences for the Noga Family." Get creative!

Inside the egg carton, I took a piece of tissue paper, folded it in half and started by laying it down in the middle of the egg carton so that each side was even as I worked my way out to the edges. I carefully pressed the tissue paper down into each egg section until there was a depression roughly the same size as the section. For the extra edges around that were sticking out along the sides, I just folded them under to give more of a rustic basket feel, rather than a polish cut feel.

Once that was completed, I found another piece of decorative paper and cut it into pieces that were one inch high and two inches long. I cut out twelve of these pieces for each of the sections in the egg carton. Each piece of paper had a different experience on it that we can choose from each month. On the back I wrote "When: __________" so that we could write down when we did this activity.

The fun part about this craft is all the fun paper you can use to truly make this your own. I went with a simpler look this year, but have a feeling that once I have kiddos starting to help decorate the egg carton, it will get a whole lot more colorful! Each year you can reuse the same egg carton, or you can make a new egg carton each year as well, depending on what your family wants to do.

It can also become a tradition that your children look forward to working on each year with you and each other to decorate the experience box. They can help you decorate, but the experiences inside can be a surprise until Christmas Day! Maybe you are surprising them with an exciting vacation that will be one of the experiences listed, or you might be planning a fun get together with friends, or there could even be an experience you do every year that might involve visiting family. Make it your own!

If you make this craft, I would love to see your creations! Tag me on Instagram with the hashtag #thebeadedsheep so that I can see your version of this fun craft!

xoxo

TBS