christmas countdown advent style

HAPPY DECEMBER...is anyone else doing a slight mental breakdown of only 24 days left until christmas....cause I'm not...just wondering if you are.

okay. I might have started to do yoga to calm myself down.

and now my leg is sore from stretching and so my yoga day (yes, only one day) is over.

but I love the holidays...and each year I start early so I can ACTUALLY enjoy the holidays...which rarely happens.... and so I decided to do a advent calendar with things pre written up that I HAVE to do to unstress me out a little bit.....

(I made this advent calendar last year..and I tried to get a step by step picture process so bare with me)

Supplies:

Dowel

canvas

25 stars

paint

ribbon

hot glue

Velcro

I bought about 21 inches of canvas...and cut it in half (so i have enough to make two advents)

I then folded back each edge, ironed them, and sewed (or hot glue) I made two different ones (okay, I actually made 4 ) but I made a sewing version and a hot glue version..both worked terrific.

 Then at the top I made sure that the edge had a big enough opening to slide the dowel in.

Paint the dowel: (optional)

I then painted a Christmas tree shape on the canvas (mine was thick enough to not soak through) so if you buy some thinner canvas make sure to put down something underneath. (now...I also made a no paint one (well I still painted the stars...but I didn't paint the canvas..I actually cut out a giant tree out of green felt and HOT GLUED it onto the canvas....in case any of you are paint shy!)

I  took some brown paint and watered it down and brushed in around the edges.

After it was all dry...I took some white paint...watered it down and splattered it down on the tree..

then I took the brown paint and repeated the splatter process on the canvas section.

and while that was drying..I painted me 25 stars. (24 for the countdown and one big one for the top)

I also painted some glitter on my stars to make them purdie.

(now instead of stars...you could gather little charms...or wood cutouts...a candy cane, an ornament, an angel, etc...i've seen packs of them at craft stores (okay, JOANNS) and they can be pretty inexpensive)

WHEN THAT DRIED ( I hate waiting..it's the worst part!)

I wrote 1 on 1 star...2 on another star...3 on another star..4 on another star..5 on yet another star...okay, I was going to do this all the way up to 24....but I gave in! you're welcome.

Then I hot glued a piece of velcro on the back on the stars...

then I hot glued 24 pieces all over the tree.

AND hot glue the biggest star on top

I also had some extra canvas so I hot glued some onto the bottom of the tree...and made me some little pockets to hold all my little twinkly stars.

oh..and i painted little presents on them...that is also OPTIONAL!

tied on a ribbon to the top to hang it up

(and I might add...I didn't pay anything for that ribbon. I saved it from one of my presents from three years ago....cause I'm awesome like that.)

My daughter comes down each morning...digs out the next star and hangs it up...I'm going to have a special thing that goes with each day...and maybe I should probably start seeing how dec 1st is...TODAY!

Here are a list of ideas to assign for each day:

Go drive and look at Christmas lights
Bake and Decorate Christmas cookies
Read the story of Jesus from the scriptures
Watch home movies
Take a treat to your neighbor
Make a Christmas craft
Decorate gingerbread houses
Sing your favorite Christmas carols
Watch a Christmas movie
Make a snowman
Go for a walk
Enjoy some hot chocolate
Make a trip to see Santa
Collect and Donate unwanted toys
Make a list of things you are thankful for
Hang some mistletoe
Write a special letter to Santa
Listen to your favorite Christmas music
Write a thank you note
Make some Christmas decorations
Do a secret act of service
Hang up your Christmas decorations
Donate some food to the local food shelter
Wrap your holiday gifts
Act out the story of jesus
Play a game
Make a homemade gift
Make some new years resolutions
Have a candy cane eating contest
Color some Christmas pictures

You could also just put a scripture with each day...
and my sister had a great idea to wrap up a christmas story to read each day

This is one from last year that I fell in love with...

A christmas advent for counting down the days
from blue cricket design
and when I was at the scrapbook store (scrapN fanatics (shoutout to all you poky people) I found this:

yes, that would make it go aLOT faster! and for one dollar...TOTALLY WORTH IT!

and this one from SYTYC

how the grinch stole christmas advent style.....adore!

and we can't forget miss martha stewart

she filled each sock with a little treat....

Or this cone one at Eighteen 25

and how could I not show this adorable one from infarrently creative?

.

make and takes

a cute twist on the classic train!

Sassy sites is also having a advent linky party....so make sure to check it out by clicking HERE