I confess: I am a toilet-roll hoarder

Because it pays off! Just watch:

Busy, busy hands.

Lots and lots and lots of toilet rolls. 72, to be exact. Which I just happened to have in a giant bag in the back porch.

Lots of paint.

Add a judicious amount of clear packing tape, spatter-painted paper, card stock, and ribbon…

and you get advent calendars!!

Ta-dah!

Simple. Assembling them, which I did after hours, was a little time-consuming, but was done while I visited with my children — specifically, my eldest, visiting from Missouri with her lovely boyfriend — so that was fun. Each tube is stuffed with a chocolate or two scrunched up in a poof of tissue (just to keep it in the tube).

Pretty, effective, simple — and cheap! My kind of craft.

This used perhaps half my stash. Perhaps. Whatever shall we do next?