Advent Calendar

I love the commercialized idea of Advent calendars.  Gifts every day of December?  Yes, please!  I love shopping (such a girl) and I love picking out the perfect present for someone.  Even if all 25 presents are for Mr. F and he totally isn't going to get it. Most of them are books and fun craft activities.  I did sneak in a few days worth of candy too.  Mom and Dad need a little Advent love too right? I saw this adorable Calendar at Garnet Hill. Love that store.

Unfortunately, for many reasons, I'm not rich.  So I decided to make my own!  I was able to pick the colors, size, and presents (did I mention presents?!?) to put in them.  While these probably aren't quite as cute as the original Garnet Hill ones, they aren't too bad.

1. I picked out the felt and waited in line for 45 minutes while an extremely friendly (or not) old lady cut material as slowly as humanly possible.

2. I drew a few different stockings.  I wanted to have 5 of each stocking but after 4 stockings I realized there are only so many ways I can draw a sock. I did a little tracing and cut out 25 stockings.

3. The next step took a while.  At least two movies worth. I cut out a ton of tiny little details to attach to each stocking.  

4. I had no idea felt glue existed but it does and it saved A LOT of time. Instead of hand stitching 500 tiny details I glued them!  And it was only about one Friends rerun worth of work :) 

5. I did some actual sewing now.  I sewed the front and the back of the stocking together.  Tough work. 

6. Then I glued on tabs and sewed them to burlap ribbon.  Yeah, that stuff is pretty great too. 

I had some placement problems.  I had a little problem looking beyond all the cool presents I could put in these stockings if they were just a little bit bigger than the Garnet Hill Calendar and well...it's really long. With a little finagling I think I worked it out.  I can't wait to teach Mr. F how to rip open presents each morning and then how to share his presents with Mommy :)