Bring on December 1st!

Oh boy, am I excited about this post! I decided last Christmas that I wanted to make an advent calendar when I saw this post by CraftyPod. I loved the idea of it. I love thinking how this will become a family tradition. Gregg thinks Lilly will have so much fun picking the ornament and hanging it up on the tree. And I had so much fun making this! I started this early to make sure that I would be done before December 1st. But I just enjoyed coming up with ideas for ornaments and decorating them that I couldn't stop and finished way before December 1st. It is all made out of felt, embroidery floss, and pillow stuffing. I got to really practice my embroidery skills too, perfect for my free form embroidery happiness.

The tree and backing are both wool felt. I used chalk to draw a tree shape then cut it out. I then pinned and sewed it on to the backing felt with a straight stitch with my sewing machine.


I still need to add pockets for each ornament and stitch on the date (1-25). I also need to figure out how to hang the ornament. I have two ideas. One follow Craftypod and use velcro. Although I am not sure I want to see 25 little velcros on the tree when we start, just doesn't seem that pretty. I could use 25 buttons and hang the ornaments like I saw at Sunshine Creations. Which do you think? Velcro or buttons?

Ornaments:

1. Christmas light
2. heart
3. snowman
4. snowflake
5. candy cane
6. bird
7. tree
8. mitten
9. ice skate
10. bell
11. apple
12. stocking
13. M (for McCord)
14. santa hat
15. star
16. ball ornament
17. reindeer
18. sleigh
19. gingerbread man
20. ribbon candy
21. gift
22. elf shoe
23. baby jesus
24. candle
25. BIG angel for the top (i love her)

I found so many inspirations and ideas that I wanted to share in case you were feeling Christmasy. I know there are others then these but unfortunately I didn't book all of them. I did find that using Flickr is much better for finding crafty ideas then google images. In fact I might redo some of the decorations on the ornaments with some of the cool ideas I found on Flickr.

• Sunshine Creations Advent
• Sunshine Creations Felt ornaments
• Craft Elf
• Christmas Symbols
• Domestic Diva Christmas Ornament Post
• Flickr angel ornaments here and here