Feeling Crafty?

I have been wanting to make an advent calendar for a couple of years now, but surprisingly, I have never found the time. I was recently charged with coming up with a few Christmas craft ideas to present to the ladies at church; Finally, I had a deadline. And people were counting on me. Guess it was time to actually start this project.

If you search "make advent calendar" or "advent calendar craft", hundreds of ideas will be brought to you in .23 seconds (at least that's how long Google took). But there was one style of calendar that really caught me eye: an advent calendar made on a cookie sheet. Yes, a cookie sheet that you bake cookies on. Before you roll your eyes and go to your bookmarks to read about something much more interesting than a homemade craft made on a cooking utensil, take a look at this:



Is that not amazing? Even if you're not into handmade items, you still have to admit that it's pretty dang cute.

Short of the story: I made the calendar, and it's adorable! It took me waaaaay longer than it should have, but that is due to my anal nature. It was a hit with the ladies at church, and I think some of them might actually try it!

The other two ideas that I present to the ladies were a little less involved. The craft for the craft-averse was to turn an ornament into a oil diffuser. Ideally, you'd take a flat-bottomed ornament, pour scented oil at least halfway, and then stick several reeds (not bamboo skewers or wood dowels; it needs to be reed) inside, and oi la. You have a room freshener that won't burn your house down or cause cancer (and whatever other criminal acts defenseless candles are accused of). If you can't find a flat-bottomed ornament, you could place a round ornament on top of a napkin ring to steady it.

The last idea was medium in skill level. And it is a precious book that my Great Aunt Lou (who passed away almost a year ago) made for me when I was just one year old. It is a Christmas ABCs book.



Basically, it's a scrapbook (she covered the outside with felt and decorated it). And each set of pages is devoted to a letter of the alphabet. Included is a short rhyming poem and pictures from old Christmas cards that coordinate with the poem.



This was one of my favorite things to unearth out of the Christmas decoration boxes each year. The time and energy she put into it was precious to me.

If you'd like to make this but don't have any Christmas cards saved, ask around. You can also cut pictures out of magazines (on a few pages, my Great Aunt Lou had to do this as well) or print pictures on your printer from the internet.

Another craft that just came to mind that I did 6 or 7 years ago was make a centerpiece. All I did was buy the clear round glass ornaments and some craft paint in Christmasy colors (paint intended for glass would work better, but the craft paint does OK. Red green and silver look great!). I took the tops off the ornaments and squeezed one color at a time into each ornament and rotated the ornament around so that the paint would kind of swirl inside. After that color had completely dried, I did the same with the other colors (try to use at least 3 colors per ornament). Put the tops back on and put all the ornaments in a cute bowl. If you have any evergreen laying around (maybe from trimming the bottom of the treee), stick a few sprigs into the bowl to give it some texture.

I am done channeling Martha Stewart. We now resume our regularly sheduled program, already in progress.