My favorite Advent Calendar so far

I have really loved this week of Advent Calendars. I hope that you were able to draw inspiration from our ideas and come up with something that you will love for years and years to come. There is plenty of time to get going on your own.

I think I just try to make up excuses for additional Advent Calendars. My husband was even giving me suggestions on the Calendars when I was making the fabric chain. I love that when he gets excited about something that I'm making;)

I thought I would share my favorite Advent Calendar so far. This is the one I made a few years ago. I started with the ornaments.

I talked with my husband about what images meant Christmas to us. A white dove, a Church, a snowflake, Jesus in a manger, peppermint candy, a gingerbread man, a train (we have two boys after all!), a Nisse (the little Santa-looking dude...it is a Danish thing.), a Danish flag, a snowman, a bell, an ornament, a package, a tree, a sleigh, etc...

Then I went through all my kid's Christmas coloring books, my cookie cutters and Googled the specific images to get inspiration. I wanted them to be big enough for my kids to really handle. They ended up quite big. Then I made the wonky tree and the pockets to fit the ornaments. I put it up at the end of my hall and see it all day every day at Christmas time. I love that it is a little bit wonky and hangs off kilter.

I don't want to bore you with all 24 ornaments, but I thought I'd share my favorite ones. I made them mostly with felt but there are lots of extra embellishments.

These were mostly sewn by hand, but some were done on my sewing machine. I used large eyelets at the top of the ornaments to put some embroidery thread through to hang them. (This did make my snowman look like a cyclops though.)

My kids get so excited to put a new ornament on the calendar. They peek in the pockets all day long and even rearrange them in the pockets.

It is how we start our day at Christmas time. I love that there isn't candy involved. I host a cookie exchange every year and we end up with dozens of cookies. I like that this goes on my wall and doesn't take up any counter space. I love that it reminds me of my childhood. And I really love how my children love this.

If you end up making an Advent Calendar using one of our tutorials, we would love to see them up in our little flickr group.

I really hope that you have gotten some good ideas from our week of Advent Calendars. What better time to start than now?

Remember, this is part of a whole week of advent calendars. Be sure to check out #1 which is a magnetic tin advent , #2 which is a framed button ornament advent, #3 which is a fabric candy or activity advent, and #4 which is a fabric or paper chain advent.

Anjeanette

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Katrina here,

I just wanted to say that I LOVE these ornaments. My favorites are the ones that have beading on them!! Makes me want to get out my felt and make some ornaments. When I was little (something like 4 years old) I remember sewing felt ornaments for a craft fair with my mother. We made items like camels and some other shapes but for some reason I only remember the camels. We stitched them up and stuffed them. My mother still has some of them that she hangs on her tree every year. My parents kept nearly all the ornaments we ever made.