One down, one to go

Last November I decided that I wanted to make an advent calendar for my family.  When I was a kid my family had one and we all enjoyed taking that day’s ornament and placing it on the tree.  (We also argued about which ornaments went where on the tree, but that’s a whole other blog post.)

I did a search to find some photos of what I wanted my advent calendar to look like and it actually caused more problems – I found too many advent calendars that I liked and I couldn’t decide which one to make.I spent the last part of November and the first week of December trying to decide what to do and then finally realized that it was too late and would have to wait until next year.

Fast forward to November 2010.  I did another search to find some sample calendars – I even created a gallery on flickr.  I sat down and drew out a sample using the parts of each calendar that I liked the best (quilting from one, colors from another, using buttons as hangars, etc.)

I foraged through my fabric stash and my craft bin and found most of what I already needed.  I knew that my sister also wanted an advent calendar and conveniently enough her birthday was right around the corner so I decided to make two calendars.   At first I did both calendars at the same time, but then time got short and I needed to finish Kristi’s first.  Right now mine is still needing 24 white buttons and some binding, but an hour or so tonight will fix that problem.

Here are some pics of my sister’s finished calendar:



decorated and then undecorated with the ornaments in their little pockets:



Here are some close ups of the little ornaments.  The pockets each measure about 2” deep and 3” wide so the ornaments are all a bit smaller than that.  I used tiny green ribbon for the hangars and all of the ornaments are made with cheap-o felts and a glue gun – worked beautifully!



I stumbled on this blog post which has a printable page full of ornament templates – it saved me a whole lotta time!

Here are the ornaments all tucked away in their pockets…



I went back and forth on how to hang the calendar.  In the end I went for simple:  I sewed two pockets on the top corners of each calendar (on the back.)  A wood stick slips right in there and then can hang on a nail or two tacks.



I’m super happy with how the calendars have turned out, and boy is it nice to have them done!  (oh and happy birthday Kris!)

I’m linking up: