Nate and Laurel: A Series of Fortunate Events: How NOT To Make An Advent Calender

Last Saturday Nate was sick in bed. I woke up wondering what I was going to do to entertain myself for the day. All of the sudden the most foreign thought hit me: I should make a craft today. What!?!?!? Did I hear my thought correctly. Did I really want to make a craft? I'm not sure I've ever had that desire, but it was there and I decided to follow through with it. I've been in the holiday mood lately and decided to make an advent calender. My mom has one that we hang on the wall every year that I used as an inspiration. I spent half the day on the phone with my mom making sure I was doing things right. Nonetheless, I managed to not do things right! Here are the four most important things I learned not to do:

1. Don't get lazy and not iron or pin the seam before sewing! I attempted to fold the top of the fabric over and sew it so there would be a place for the wooden dowel to go through. My laziness caused it to be so ridiculously crooked and bunched up that I finally just decided to cut the top off! Fortunately, I had left enough room that I could sew it again, correctly this time.
2. Don't buy a wooden dowel and then leave it at Hobby Lobby at the checkout stand! I know it only cost me $0.59 but I refuse to go back and buy another one.
3. Don't attempt to alternate red and green writing if you're going to get distracted and do two greens in a row!
4. Most importantly, don't make 32 pockets when there are only 24 days to count down to Christmas! I sewed 4 rows of pockets with the intention of making 6 pockets in each row but somehow got confused and made 8 pockets instead. I didn't discover my mistake until I was writing the numbers on the pockets. Good thing I have a great pair of fabric scissors! I ended up cutting off the bottom row of pockets. My calender ended up being several inches shorter than I originally intend due to my hack job on the top and bottom!

Despite my rookie mistakes, I think my advent calender actually turned out alright- especially for a craft from me. It was pretty simple too. I cut out a Christmas tree shape of green felt and sewed it on some white sparkly felt. Then I sewed the rows of pockets. Next, I poked some jingle bell brads in the tree to hang the ornaments on. My mom's calender has homemade felt ornaments with velco on the back but I knew I would never make 24 hand-cut ornaments so I figured out a way to hang some store-bought ornaments instead. Finally I used glitter glue to write the numbers on the pockets. Everything I bought was half off at Hobby Lobby, so I was pretty happy about that. Here is a picture of the semi-finished product. I need to get another dowel (ugh) and some ribbon to hang it. I also wanted to write Merry Christmas or Countdown to Christmas on it, but I'm not sure if I'll have enough room now that I've shortened it...