Ramadan calendars are all the rage these days, especially with the Pinterest loving Muslim mama’s! The idea is taken from traditional advent calendars used for the countdown to Christmas. I made this one last Ramadan for my daughter. Each night we would break our fast and then let her open one of the gifts. Her excitement each night about opening a new gift was so much fun for us to watch and made it such a memorable Ramadan for us!
This Ramadan, my younger daughter will be turning two, and my older one just turned four. That means sibling rivalry is rearing it’s ugly head and they are always fighting for the same toys all the time! So to keep my sanity during iftar time, I decided to make one for each of them. Maybe someday in the future their sisterly love and bond will be so strong that they will want to share all their toys. Ha.
I got the idea for this from my daughter’s birthday party. I hate the traditional piñata (for a lot of reasons I won’t go into right now), so I made a “punch piñata.” The kids punch through the tissue paper and take out a toy.
For this project, instead of a flat poster board I used a 12″ x 12″ box. This way I wouldn’t have to hold it or hang it on a wall, because my two year old would probably go crazy seeing it all day on the wall and not being able to punch it. I can easily put this away each night after they get their present. Out of sight, out of mind!
Supplies:
- 12″x 12″ cardboard box
- 6 sheets of 12″ x 12″ scrapbook paper in any pattern of your choice OR 1 roll wrapping paper
- Mod lodge and foam brush to apply it
- Glitter
- Exacto knife or a sharp knife
- 2 sheets of tissue paper
- Stickers or anything else for decorating the box
- Hot glue
- 30 Plastic cups (small to medium in size)
- Gifts for the kids
How to:
1. Use the plastic cup to trace circles on all four sides of the cardboard box. I put 8 on two sides and 7 on the other two sides to make a total of 30 holes.
2. Cut out the circles. I found a small straight edged blade to be the easiest to use for this. This will be your killer arm workout right before ramadan!
3. Close off the top of the box. Wrap it in wrapping paper on 5 sides (I left the bottom side uncovered because no one will see it!) or cover it with the scrapbook paper using some mod lodge. I bought a TON of moroccan inspired scrapbook paper from Michaels a few weeks ago when they were on sale at 7 for a $1! Even though the box and paper were both 12″, the box was a little bit bigger than that, so I had to cut off a little bit of scrapbook paper to cover the edges.
4. Once the box is covered, open the bottom of the box and cut out the circles on the wrapping/scrapbook paper from the inside, using an exact knife.
5. I’m kind of a perfectionist when it comes to my crafts, and the unevenness of the circles was bothering me a little too much, so I decided to glitter all the edges of the circles to make it look prettier and take off the attention from the uneven circles. You can skip this step if you want to, or if uneven circles don’t keep you up at night!
6. Then cut up some tissue paper squares and tape them on the inside of the box to cover up the circles. Or use a single sheet to cover up each side. I did both below.
7. Put the gifts on top of each hole.
8. Now grab the disposable glasses and put hot glue on the rim of each glass and quickly set it upside over the present. This keeps the gifts in place behind each circle. 
9. Decorate the outside of the box. I have a star cutter which I used to cut out pretty glittery paper. Then I stuck those stars on bamboo sticks and stuck them inside the box. I found the wooden moon with the stars on it from Dollar Tree and used some glitter to decorate it. Use some hot glue on the holes where the bamboo stick was pushed in to ensure it stays there for the next 30 days!
This project took some time and effort to make, but the end result is so beautiful and unique, and I can’t wait for my girls to see it in Ramadan insha’Allah!
*If you don’t want to do a box, then you can get some poster board and use an exacto knife to cut out the 30 holes, then follow the directions from #6-#8. I used a white poster board for my daughters birthday and decorated it with pretty washi tape. Let us know if you have any questions!
*Some gift ideas:
- playdough
- stickers
- small bubble bottle
- crayons
- necklaces, rings, bracelets, berets for girls
- wrapped candy/chocolate
- small puzzles
- small toy figurines (Dollar store has a lot of Disney ones), my daughter collects My Little Pony and Care Bears found from Target.
- Mini cars (my little one is obsessed with these)
- Finger puppets
- Crafts supplies (for the older ones, like beads, glitter, etc.)
Peruse through your local Dollar stores and Target dollar bins, you can actually find some pretty decent toys there. Almost half of mine will be filled with chocolate though, my girls are chocoholics, and what better time to spoil them than in Ramadan 🙂
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