I stopped last year when my grandma suddenly passed away but I wanted to do it this year. My kids loved it and it really helped to teach them the true meaning of Christmas. Below is what you need in order to make it. There isn't a lot of sewing and in fact you can use glue on the ornaments if you don't sew.
I ordered the book The Advent Jesse Tree: Devotions for children and Adults to Prepare for the Coming of the Christ Child at Christmas. I used this book plus this tree tutorial to make our family's own calendar. Now if you go to this tutorial it teaches you how to basically do what I am doing but mine is tailored to the Jesse Tree and its symbols. This blogger is Mormon and her's is tailored to that, just so you know. I did do my own tutorial - you can visit it here.
This is a picture of her tree. |
So starting Tuesday I will be sharing how to make an ornament a day so that you could have this done by December 1st to start with teaching your children about the real meaning of Christmas. I love this book because it starts at the beginning of the Bible and goes through to the birth of Christ. Of course you can teach them anyway you want, but I know my kids liked this and so this is what I did.
You can read more about Jesse Trees here.
If you are interested in doing this you will want to get the following supplies:
Felt - several colors including orange, gray, black, white, green, blue, pink, yellow, brown, gold.
Felt by the yard - 3/4 to 1 yard of green and white
Heat n bond light OR fabric glue - you don't have to get the Heat N Bond but it makes things a lot easier
Hook and eye closures (25 of them)
Felt number stickers (they have these at most craft stores) - you can get this instead of cutting out all the numbers if you want
As I said to make this less overwhelming just do one ornament a day and have your kids help too! For tomorrow we will be doing the earth:
And just so you, know I did something wrong from the original pattern. I put the symbols on the colored side of the ornaments when I should have put them on the white side but it doesn't really matter and since this is for my family I just went with it.
THANKS for this reminder! I definitely wanted to do this last year, but ran out of time with all we had going on last year. If I get started soon, I can pull it off this year. We've never really done an Advent/Jesse tree, but I've wanted to for several years. The kids did an advent series at church this past year and it really sparked our interest.
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