My son goes through phases of what he likes to watch on t.v. I'm very much a person that can't sit in silence, I like having background noise going while we are playing or doing projects. And since he gets to pick what we watch I become very familiar with certain shows / movies.
Well for about a month straight we were watching A Very Monkey Christmas (Curious George). This led to two things being decided. One, we are going to pick out a real tree this year, because that's what George and the man in the yellow hat did. And two, he needed a countdown chart, because George got one. Last year we bought our son his own smaller tree to put his little ornaments on (he left the big one alone because he had his own, yay for last minute 'pick this up on your way home'). So I figured, hey we should get him an advent calendar with ornaments so he cause decorate his tree! It can't be that hard ...
Well I did my normal research on Amazon and the like. Decided I didn't like the look, functionality or price of any of the ones on there. Plus I knew it had to be 3 year old proof. Then I turned to Pinterest and started doing research there.
After some thinking and planning and multiple "inspiration" pins, I came up with this.
Little man checking out the finished backdrop.
And here are the ornaments I made.
I tried to choose things that he likes, as well as one to represent Mommy and one for Daddy. Plus one thing I decided to do was only make 24 and buy the last one. That cost more then the whole project! The reasoning for that ... we are a family addicted to Christmas ornaments ... there I admit it. My thought process is, once he is on his own *sob* (kids grow up too fast) he will have a nice collection already started. So he will get a new one every year. Just like I pick out ... 'one' every year for myself and my husband gets one also. This year is a Curious George one.
So left to right and down there's: red mitt, snow man, Christmas tree, blue snowflake, gingerbread house, monkey (for my little monkey), blue present, snow globe, reindeer, Totoro (From my neighbor Totoro), penguin, Christmas light, Santa's boot, Owl (for me), heart, star, acorn (to go with Totoro), Santa hat, cat, candy cane, bird, turtle (for Daddy), Mickey, guitar. And the bought one.
I pretty much just had to buy:
Felt sheets (I would recommend looking before buying. Hobby Lobby was 4 for $1.00 and Joann's ended up being about 3 for $1.00)
One bag of batting
Enough felt for doing the back drop, pockets and numbers.
Sequins (I found one multi-colored baggie was more than enough)
Clear beads for anchoring the sequins on for the detailing
Cross stitching / embroidery thread, you could use regular thread I assume but I liked the actual sewn look I got using two strands of the embroidery thread.
Craft glue that will adhere to felt
Ribbon or twine for hanging the ornaments.
Marker for doing rough outlines before cutting out your shapes
And any little decorations you want for jazzing up the backdrop
A dowel to hang it up
Oh and duh, scissors!
And most importantly, patience. This took me about two weeks of naps to get of the ornaments done and two days to get the back drop done. I cut out all of the numbers and letters, you can buy pre-cut ones but I wanted to do as much as possible myself.
Most things I already had, what I didn't I used coupons for.
Most ornaments where just two identical shapes cut out, one side got sequins (to reflect the Christmas tree lights!). Sewn 3/4 of the way around, filled a little bit with batting and then sewn up with the hanger sticking out ... and yes some of my ornaments will be hanging a bit sideways because I would get distracted talking to my husband and forget to put the hanger where I had planned for it to be.
Sorry for the lack of detailed pictures. I hadn't thought of posting this until I saw the reaction it got from the whole family.
Thanks for dropping by!
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