Well Holy Crap. . .I Actually Made - A CRAFT!

Every year Joshua wants me to re-create the same construction paper/cotton ball Santa's beard advent calendar that he had when he was in the one-year old class at his preschool.  Yes.  You heard me correctly.  The ONE-YEAR OLD CLASS (How does he remember this stuff?!?!?!  Seriously!!!)

And every year I remake it as best I can.  And it's kind of a pain, really, but he so looks forward to having it that I can't say no.  I'm such a sucker. 

So as he reminded me the other day, it's getting close time to make the calendar.  And I got to thinking, wouldn't it be nice if I could make just ONE more, and then use it year after year?  (Except that now that I've actually made one that will be reusable year after year, he's going to say he's too big for it.  And then I will ask Santa to put coal and switches in his stocking cry a lot and tell him how I sustained third degree burns from using the hot glue gun and we are putting it up anyway, and by gosh he WILL like it smile serenely and put it in my bedroom and do it myself.)

Wow.  OK, so back to my spectacular craftiness.  Which isn't really all that spectacular, but it was the best I could do.  If someone actually thinks it's a good idea, I'm sure they'll copycat it, make it totally super cute, post a picture somewhere and then theirs instead of mine will be pinned like 90 million times.  And I'll only be completely a little bitter.

So I headed to the craft store and looked around.  I used felt, but now I wonder if that foamy board stuff might have worked a bit better.  Take that for what it's worth.  I took pictures of how I basically made it, but since I don't normally "craft", I am missing a bunch of steps and I left all kinds of stuff out.  But it's not rocket science, folks.  I made it.

So the first thing you want to do is buy your supplies.  Here's my picture:

The supply list is:

Felt -

1 Red
1 White
1 Pink
2 Green - One of these was a "stiffer" felt.

Some sort of "wire"ribbon
Hot glue gun
Puffy Paint in black and red
Those little puff thingies  (100 count white ones - not too big, not too little.)
Velcro - (I bought squares of them and cut them to the size I needed.)
Stapler
Hole Punch
Black fine tip magic marker

I think that's it.  As you can tell by my descriptions of things, I definitely lack a craft gene.  It really is a miracle I made this at all.

OK.  So I used the "stiff" green felt for the backing.  Then I cut out a piece of red felt and glued it to the backing like this:

Then I cut out a pink piece shaped like this for the face and glued it on:

Then I cut out a white piece for his beard and glued it on top of the pink:

Then I cut out a little red mouth and a hat shape, as well as a pink nose and glued those on:

After that, I started gluing on the white puffy things.  I glued on enough for his hat trim, his hair, his mustache and the start of the beard:

Then I took the Velcro and trimmed them into small pieces.  Twenty-four to be exact.  I took the rough piece and stuck it to 24 of the puffy things:

Then I placed them on the rest of the beard and spaced them so I'd have the placement nice for the rest of the beard.  I'd pick one up and stick the soft side of the Velcro to the white felt:

After that was done, I took my fine tip magic marker and wrote out all the numbers:

I took my second piece of felt and cut a strip about 3 inches wide and stapled it to the top, leaving a gap so that it made a sleeve where I could slide a dowel rod (or something else) through.    I hot glued the top pieces together.  I made little ribbons out of the wire ribbon and glued them on top of the staples.  I'd have taken pictures of all this part, but I got too lazy I forgot.

Then I decided I needed a pocket to hold all the little puffy things till we were ready to use them.  I took the rest of the felt and folded it in half and stapled the sides shut.  And then I hot glued puffy things along the sides to hide the staples:

I made black puffy paint eyes, and I puffy painted "Christmas Countdown!" on the pocket.

I then slid the dowel through and wrapped it with the wire ribbon to make the hanger.

Then, with my hole punch I punched holes in the top sides of the pockets and at the bottom of the calendar.  I took my wire ribbon and strung it through so that the pocket is now hanging down from the bottom of the calendar.  And here is the finished product!

The one thing I regret is not having Joshua help me.  I wished I had, because it would have made it more special.  But frankly, I had no idea what I was doing.  'Nuff said on that.

Also, if you are someone reading this who has a craft product and you want me to test it out, I will forwarn you.  I am NOT crafty.  And you may regret asking me to try your product.  Just sayin'.

And one more thing.  I know I did not do a great job at explaining the steps here, and I more than likely (well no.  I'm sure I did) left a bunch of steps out.  So if you have questions, feel free to ask.  Unless you think it's ugly, in which case you are not nice to make fun of craft challenged people like me and you should really kiss my ass be ashamed of yourself for making fun of a normally uncrafty gal who's trying to make her little boy happy.

Happy Day, folks!