Advent Calendar with Removable Ornaments

Blog 47

Is your house already decorated for the holidays? The recent snowfall here in Ottawa has certainly set the mood for Christmas. When I was a child, I could hardly wait for December 1 as this was the day that my mother put up the Advent calendar.  She had made it herself, and for every day there was a treat hanging on a little hoop. The Advent calendar was invented in Germany in the 19th century and is used to count the days of Advent in anticipation of Christmas. The date of the first Sunday of Advent can be anywhere between November 27 and December 3 as the first Advent is on the the fourth Sunday before Christmas, however most Advent calendars start on December 1. With one week to go until December 1, this is a project you cannot postpone.

Here is a list of the materials:

• 16” x 20” canvas
• Blue fabric, 20” x 24”
• Scissors
• Felt sheets in different colours (I used red, orange, beige, and white)
• Felt piece of 16” x 20” in green for the tree
• Liquid Stitch, stitchless sewing glue
• Sticky back hook and loop fasteners (Velcro)
• Embroidery Floss
• Needle
• Felting needle (optional)
• Small piece of foam sheet (optional, for felting)
• Small amount of brown roving for the dark patches on the bears (optional, for felting)
• Small bag for the decorations or cloth to sew one

Here are the steps to create your Advent calendar:

1) Fold the piece of fabric around a canvas and glue it to the support frame.

2) Draw the image of a tree onto the large green felt piece and cut the shape out. The tree does not have to be symmetrical.

3) Put the tree onto the blue fabric and glue both the tree and the corners that you cut out to make the tips of the tree onto the fabric. I started with the cut out corners.

4) Cut out two different sized stars as the tree topper and glue them to the top of your tree.

4) Cut out 24 (or 25) ornaments of your liking. You could also get small store-bought embroidered patches.

5) Decorate your ornaments if you like. I added eyes and a snout for the bears, some stitches on the Christmas balls as well as the numbers of the days to all ornaments. I also used a felting needle to felt the dark spots onto the bears.

6) Use “Liquid Stitch” to attach a small piece of sticky back hook and loop fastener to each ornament as well as the opposite side to the tree itself. This way you can remove the ornaments.

7) Buy or sew a small bag as storage for the decorations. A Ziplock bag will work too if you do not have time to get another one.

Starting on December 1, each day another ornament is attached to the tree until December 24 or 25. This is the perfect Advent calendar for everyone who wants to avoid the extra sweets during the Christmas season, or as an additional one to your chocolate calendar. Please let me know if you would like the templates for the ornaments and the tree. You have exactly one week to get your project ready in time.