I ruined my Black Apple Doll when I painted the face. I erased the other doll to show you what it looked like before I painted. I am so upset since I thought they were so cute before. I just wanted their eyes to be open and I don’t quite have the skills to paint a face. So now I am going to start over and do the face before sewing it all together. You can find the Black Apple Doll Pattern on the Martha Stewart Website.
My nieces used to love cupcakes. I totally missed the boat on making these ornaments for them, but better late than never, right? I couldn’t find a template I liked so I just drew it myself. First, I traced two white cupcake tops and two rectangular brown bottoms; both made from felt. Then on one side of the cupcake top, I stitched on a loop of green ribbon with the red button stitched on at the same time. Next, I took a very thin beading needle and sewed on all of the seed beads. After that I stitched the top of the cupcake from the front to the brown bottom and did the same for the back side pieces. I used floss for this. The very last step was to stitch the front to the back using the floss. I had to switch from brown to white as I went around. This ended up being pretty easy and took about an hour.
My son came up with this idea all on his own. All he did was made one of the tiny advent ornaments from Perler and then used the round plastic shape that came with the kit to make a rug. He left 2 beads out on in the middle of the round “rug” part so that the trunk can fit into the hole and stand up.
The advent calendar is almost done. So after glueing all of the numbers down and the tree, my kids made the ornaments that will go into the pockets.
The kids made the ornaments out of Perler beads, which was perfect because it became a craft for them as well. You can find all of the patterns for the ornaments on the Perler bead site and also the pattern for the tree.
For the tree I actually traced it from my computer screen onto two papers so that I didn’t waste ink printing all of that color. Then I taped the two parts of the tree together and just drew an outline outside of the tree two times to enlarge it. I tried several other tree patterns and this tree just seemed the best for our ornaments to all fit.
Now my next decision is how to hang the ornaments on the tree. I always thought I would place little velcro dots all over the tree and the other part of the velcro would be glued to the ornament, but now I am not so sure it will hold up. I worry that the velcro will be too strong and be difficult to use. I also couldn’t find red velcro dots, so I had to cut my own circles which don’t look too great. Using buttons is an idea. I could stitch buttons on all over the tree and then thread some floss through the ornaments to hang them. There will be some tests over the next few days to figure out what looks best. I definitely want something that looks decorative even when the ornaments aren’t hanging yet.
Just a note: the tree measures about 15.5 inches tall and 10.25 inches wide at the widest part. The blue background fabric is about 34 inches tall (without the 1.5 inch pocket turned to the back so total it would be 35.5 inches before sewing) and 15.5 inches wide. I just spaced the pockets to fit. There were no exact measurements on placing the pockets.
I am also giving a kit to make all of this to two of my nieces for their birthdays. Each kid contains the already assembled calendar, but they glue on the numbers, and then all of the beads and other supplies to make the ornaments. The kit even includes a little book with all of the ornament patterns.
ETA: I decided to go with the buttons. Here are some pictures:
Here is a boy version I am starting for my son:
My son brought this home the other day and I thought it was such a cute idea. After you draw a person, just cut a slit in the legs of the person and then they can “walk” by manipulating the paper.
Filed under: Advent Calendar, Christmas, Crafts, Holidays, Kids, Sewing, Winter
I have always wanted to make an advent calendar that didn’t require filling pockets with more treats and gifts. I have seen a few of this style advent calendars out there and this is what I have come up with. First I cut the pockets out of felt measuring 2.5 inches x 2.25 inches. The hardest part was coming up with the color arrangement. Next, I stitched the pockets on using 3 strands of floss. I tried to mix up the colors on each pocket.
Here is a picture of the calendar so far. I cut the tree and centered it above the pockets. More on where I got the pattern for the tree on the next post. For the top of the blue felt background, I sewed down a little less than 1.5 inches to the back to create a little pocket to hang the calendar up.
The last thing I did for today was to cut out numbers to glue onto the pockets. I just glued them using felt glue. I also glued the tree down.
A few years ago I bought this cute tooth pillow for my kids. I bought it from the Junior League Holiday Mart, but am not sure who made it. Your kids put their tooth in the little pocket on the front and then hang the pillow on the door. This makes the job of the Tooth Fairy much easier since there is no search for a tooth under the pillow. In the morning your kids can find some money traded for their tooth in the pocket. Here are some ideas I have found online to make your own:
This last pillow is one I made 4 years ago for a gift.
Books: ( My oldest was really upset when he lost his first tooth. Reading some books really helped.)
Dear Tooth Fairy
Loose Tooth by Lola Schaefer
Arthur’s Tooth by Marc Brown
Last night we did this little bat craft that came from No Time for Flashcards. I just love this site. We read Stellaluna first and then did the craft. Tomorrow we are going to read some nonfiction books on bats and make a little booklet with bat facts.
You can find this spooky skeleton here to print out, glue to paper and then hang in your house.
This was a quick and easy preschool craft that I found on Learning Vicariously. All you do is draw some ghosts using a white crayon on white paper and then let your kids watercolor over the paper to find them. Just make sure to use a regular white crayon and not a washable one. The first time we did this craft I had used washable and the ghosts didn’t resist that much. The kids really enjoyed this craft.
