Advent Tree

Photos: December 2008

Christmas is well on its way and most evenings you can find me in my (cold) office upstairs crafting away. I've been thinking about making an Advent calendar for the last few years. Of course I could buy one and just be done with it but nooooooo, I have to craft it with my own two hands. After looking around on the internet at other people's ideas and creations I came up with something all my own and it cost me $0. Free is a very good price.

First, I used Photoshop Elements to crop photos into a star shape with a nice black border. I've found that a fat black line makes cutting out so much easier and if you don't get all the white paper off the edges you can just fill in with a black marker. I turned all my photos black and white which makes them seem more timeless, I think, and not so busy looking. After I had already printed the sheets of star shaped photos I decided that I wasn't so excited about the plain white backs of the stars. I put the paper back in the printer and printed out some digital patterened paper onto the back. Much better. If I had planned better I could have just printed my star photos onto the back of patterned scrapbook paper and I would not have wasted so much ink. Live and learn, that's the crafters motto.

Next I cut out all my stars and punched a hole at the top and added a string. {I truly love white string and (sadly) could not live without it.} I punched out small circles and stamped numbers on them 1 - 25 and added them to the bottom of the stars.

After thinking long and hard about how to make something to display the stars on, I finally came up with this: 1 metal bucket + a few twigs ripped off the dead tree in the burn pile + a couple handfuls of river rocks from our yard = 1 Advent Tree. I think it's fantastic and best of all Jonas loves it. He was thrilled to find out that he gets to find the next numbered star and put it on the tree every morning. It's the first thing he says upon waking, "Mom, today I get to put on the 4 star!"

Best. Craft. Ever.

If you're interested in doing your own version of this Advent Tree you could use photos that you already have (good way to use up leftover photos) and just use a template to cut them into any shape you desire. And you could adhere patterned paper to the back so that you wouldn't encounter the dreaded Plain-White-Back syndrome. Then be brave and go in your yard (or come to mine) and forage for sticks and rocks. Go ahead. Get your Craft on.