Saturday, December 18, 2010

Fabric Advent Calendar

I followed along on an advent calendar blog hop a few weeks ago.  The projects were beautiful, but were all made of paper.  I kept thinking that after spending that much time on a project, I'd sure want it to last a while.

I've had this fabric advent calendar, made by my aunt, for as long as I can remember 




Several years ago I made a similar one for my best friend's son.  (I wasn't taking pictures of my projects back then.)  When her second child came along, she asked if I'd make one for him too, which I gladly did.  This year, her daughter is three, and I made her this one.  This time I changed from a Christmas tree design to a wreath.



Here's the basic info:  The red background is corduroy.  The wreath is fleece.  The fabric strips at the bottom are divided into little pockets and hold the wooden discs, one of which is hung each day.  The wooden discs were purchased at the craft store and painted white.  One one side I glued on pictures I had cut from Christmas cards.  I always enjoyed the two discs on my calendar that had family pictures on them, so I asked my friend for a few pictures of her family for the ones I made.  The loops to hang the ornaments are made of ribbon and the ends of the ribbon are glued under the pictures.  On the other side of the discs are numbers.  My calendar has numbered white buttons to hang the "ornaments" on, so I had to match the number on the disc to the number on the buttons.  On the first two calendars that I made, I sewed on tiny jingle bells.  On this one, I sewed on red buttons.  The bow is store bought and is plastic.  I attached it to the wreath with velcro so it can be detached and won't get smashed when the calendar is folded up for storage.

I still enjoy hanging an ornament on my advent calendar each day.  I hope my friend's children enjoy theirs as much as I do.

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