Advent Calendars!

I love a good advent calendar and now's the time to make them! There are so many fun and beautiful ideas out there. We have shared a few of ours in the past.

Musical Advent Calendar Garland is so easy you can make it in an afternoon AND the commitment is pretty low. Can you sing a song a day? Then you can do it!

Jordan's Felt Advent Calendar reminds me of the advent calendar we had growing up. Oh the fights we had over whose day it was to hang up the ornament.

Countdown to Christmas is almost an advent, so it should be included =)

Are you counting down the days yet?

Music Advent Calendar Garland

This year I wanted to make an advent calendar, but I wasn't sure what I wanted to do for each day. I wanted something simple enough I could really do it everyday. So I decided on music. I love Christmas music and my favorite part of Christmas Eve at my parents' house is singing all the Christmas carols. This was a great way to celebrate and appreciate the music all month long.

Ignore the football game on TV in the background

I thought it'd be fun to put the countdown on my mini Christmas tree as a garland. First, I found some vintage Christmas sheet music and printed it onto cardstock. Using my Silhouette, I cut out circles from the cardstock with the numbers counting down to Christmas and small holes at the top of each circle, to attach them to the garland. I also cut red circles.

 

I wrote two song titles on the red circles, one a Christmas hymn and the other a fun Christmas song. Finally, I glued the red circles on the back of the printed cardstock circles and tied them onto twine to make the garland.



Here's the list of songs I used:

Christmas Hymns

Joy to the World

Oh, Come All Ye Faithful

Angels We Have Heard on High

Silent Night

Once in Royal David’s City

Away in a Manager

It Came upon the Midnight Clear

O Little Town of Bethlehem

Hark! The Herald Angels Sing

With Wondering Awe

While Shepherds Watched their Flocks

Far, Far Away on Judea’s Plains

The First Noel

I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day

Spiritual Children's Christmas Songs

From the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints' (aka Mormon) Children's Songbook:

Stars Were Gleaming

When Joseph Went to Bethlehem

Away in a Manager

Mary’s Lullaby

Who is the Child?

Picture a Christmas

Christmas Bells

The Nativity Song

Oh, Hush, Thee My baby

Have a Very Merry Christmas!

Fun Christmas Songs:

Deck the Halls

God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen

O Christmas Tree

O Come, O Come Emmanuel

The Twelve Days of Christmas

We Three Kings of Orient Are

We Wish You a Merry Christmas

What Child is This?

The Holly and the Ivy

Santa Claus is Coming to Town

White Christmas

Let it Snow

Jingle Bells

Jingle Bell Rock

Rudolph The Red-nosed Reindeer

It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year

Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree

Feliz Navidad

Frosty the Snowman

A Holly Jolly Christmas

Here comes Santa Claus

Carol of the Bells

Home or the Holidays

It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas

Winter Wonderland

The Christmas Song

Now each day we can sing those songs and, if I'm feeling ambitous, I can research about these songs or read coordinating scripture references (found in the LDS hymnal at the bottom of the page, helpful!).

Merry Christmas

Calender Artwork

Last week, I made this and took pictures all the way through and was so excited to show you all. And then, to my great disappointment, I accidentally deleted all the pictures...So now I'll just have to give you the details instead of show them.

I wanted to do something with the months of the year and not just the seasons. I knew I had a lot of popsicle sticks so why not use them! I taped 12 (one for each month) popsicle sticks together with masking tape.Then I glued a popsicle stick at the top and one at the bottom with a hot glue gun and removed the masking tape. On the other side, I sketched a tree lightly with a pencil making sure the tree extended to all 12 sticks. The first coat of paint I did was the sky. Then I painted on the tree using a narrow brush for the skinny branches. Next I did the green leaves and grass by tapping the paint on. Then I layered on some "flowers" with different colored dots on the grass and tree. I used the end of a small brush handle to make the dots. I used the same technique of dots for the fall leaves. Then I added some snow on to the branches and ground again with a narrow brush. To make it look like it was snowing, I got a cheap brush, dabbed it in white, and on a scratch piece of paper I hit the brush a couple of times until the bristles fanned out. Usually, cheap paint brushes end up looking like that already from being smashed by little kids so I didn't feel bad doing that to this paint brush. Fan brushes are great for doing snow but since this was so small, I didn't use one. After it all dried, I painted the first initial of each of the months on the sticks. And just like that, you have a cute and easy picture of the months of the year!
*You can also use tongue depressors or paint mixing sticks if you wanted to do it on a bigger scale.

Christmas in July: Felt Advent Calendar

It's Christmas in July! All week on Wayward Girls' Crafts, we'll be blogging Christmas crafts. And next week, a very special week of craftiness!

Every year, our family uses a felt Advent calendar (you know, a calendar to count the days until Christmas). My mom's calendar is gorgeous, with details in gold thread and beautiful beads and sequins, including some shaped like holly leaves, snowflakes and more. When I made mine, however, I couldn't find the fancy sequins anywhere :( . It just wasn't the same, so I went for a different form of decoration in my calendar.

Materials:

• Felt
• Scissors
• Glitter fabric paint
• Tacky glue
• Thread
• 25 hooks and 26 eyes
• (Possibly: sewing machine or needle)

In this set of ornaments, I'm missing my reindeer and sleigh. The second row of ornaments are symbols of Christ (and technically, the candle belongs there).

I combined elements of my husband's family's felt Advent calendar, too: they have a Nativity scene among their ornaments, and I loved that sentiment. The Nativity characters are along the bottom row (the first one is an angel, but the silver and iridescent sparkles don't show up well here).

I tried to make sure that each ornament had some bling on it somewhere with glitter fabric paint. I glued the various piece of felt together with tacky glue. Here's a closeup of one of the pieces:

The background is a Christmas tree on red felt, with rows of pockets at the bottom for the ornaments. I couldn't find mine (I hope it's somewhere with the reindeer and sleigh!), but here's the idea:

Each day of December, you add another ornament to the tree using the hooks and eyes. We kept the last ornament, for Christmas Day, (we used the star; my husband's family used the baby Jesus) on an extra hook on the back of the calendar. We loved the calendar so much that we always fought over who got to put up the ornaments--but now that most of us don't live at home, sometimes Mom doesn't even put up the calendar until the week before Christmas!

My favorite ornaments, aside from the characters, are the snowflake and snowman. Which are your favorites? What would you put on your tree?