Advent Calendar: Part 1

Welcome to Part 1 in a 4 part tutorial on how to make your own knock-off Pottery Barn for Kids felt advent calender.

If you want to follow along, go get yourself a wide variety of felt, a package of miniature multi-colored pom poms, some ribbon and lots and lots of fabric glue. 

*No sewing was involved in decorating each square.

Each of my squares is roughly 4 1/2 inches wide by 5 1/2 inches long.

 
The bigger squares allowed for greater detail to be achieved BUT the bigger squares also resulted in a BIGGER tree and BIGGER pockets to fill.  Feel free to scale down the patterns provided to the size pockets you desire.

Let's get started!

First, a partridge in a pear tree.

 Supplies:  Felt: cream, burgundy, dark green, green, oatmeal, yellow and black {the square is tan felt}

A red candle, with a holly base.

Supplies:  Felt: red, yellow, black, dark green, green {the square is light blue felt}

A Christmas tree light.

Supplies:  Felt: red, green, black and white {the square is dark green felt}

Simple holly.

Supplies:  Felt: Green and red {the square is dark blue felt}

An ice skate.

Supplies:  Felt: cream, red, blue, yellow, gray {the square is tan felt}. *I used yellow felt for the laces but looking back, it would have been cute with embroidered laces as well.

Peel the glue off your fingers and check out the remaining 3 parts to this tutorial to complete your own advent calender.

Advent Calender Part 2
Advent Calender Part 3
Advent Calender Part 4
And be sure to check out my other Christmas inspired posts:

DIY Pottery Barn Candle

DIY Star Wars Ornaments

DIY Santa Beard

Goodwill Hunting Roundup

It's about that time to show off my Goodwill/Flea Market finds.

Goodwill:

I couldn't even believe my eyes when I saw these 2 shelves...

They were in perfect condition. The detail and quality of these shelves looked as if they had never been used.

These are Pottery Barn shelves, currently for sale in the store for $65 a piece and I paid $14 for both of them {$6.99 a piece}. That's a difference of $116. I couldn't believe my luck. It was as if they were waiting there just for me!

I will be getting my own little crafting nook, with custom table my talented husband is making me. I've been looking for white cups or containers to put things like pins or buttons. When I saw this white sugar bowl {?} I thought it was perfect.

When I got it home and removed the $1.99 price tag I realized, I just bought my first Mikasa.

I also picked up a green candy dish, for .99 cents, and threw some of my sparkly bracelets in there. Why not have them out to admire, right?

For .99 cents, I couldn't pass up this adorable tin pencil case.

It came from a Container Store in the UK and ended up in my Goodwill. That, of course, added to the appeal. Grace is currently using it to store her paint brushes.

That wasn't the only thing Grace got...

She also got an Old Navy brown polka dot fleece vest for $2.99. Perfect for a crisp fall day.

Admittedly an unnecessary second picture of the vest...I just couldn't resist adding this picture.

I even got a little something for Superman. If you didn't already know, clearance merchandise that doesn't sell from Target is donated to Goodwill. This Superman tee shirt was brand new {originally sold by Target}, tags still attached. It was only $2.99 and made for a quick and easy costume.

Another Goodwill tip. Halloween is their biggest holiday. All their stores are festively decorated and loaded with donated Halloween costumes and decorations {some brand new} for a fraction of their retail price. Next year, check them out for your Halloween costumes.

Flea Market Finds:

Both of these small wooden bird cages were a deal for $8 total.

One of my husband's finds...

What you might ask is this? A pulley. My husband called it an architectural pulley, perhaps that's just a way to make me feel better about adding more rustic wood objects to our growing collection of wood stuff. He has already started sanding in efforts to refinish it so maybe they'll be more pictures of this "architectural" pulley in the future.

I guess I can't complain too much about our {his} growing collection of rustic wood objects because I was tempted again with another kitchen scale. We stole this away for $18.

I love the teal blue color. I will be leaving this untouched, rust spots and all. Something about it just makes me happy. So now, I have 2 kitchen scales. I think, technically, you don't have a collection until you have at least 3 of something so I'll have to avoid any temptation about adding another scale to the mix.

What good deals have you found lately?

The little black tee shirt

Now that the sheepie costume is behind us...

I decided to use the plain long sleeve black tee shirt, from under the sheepie fluff, and get crafty with it.

We've never really dressed Grace in black, probably because for her first year or two of life, she had very little hair, and even though we dressed her in pink, she was often confused for a boy. So this shirt definitely needed a little feminine touch, cue some pink fabric with black polka dots

AND some Heat N Bond Ultra Hold which is no sew!

I drew out a simple silhouette of a dog and then traced it onto the Heat n Bond. {I could totally see using a car or a rocket ship silhouette for a little boy's tee shirt and embellishing with a button or two.}

Iron your designed Heat n Bond onto the fabric.

I used to cut the exact design out of the heat and bond and then iron it onto my fabric BUT the queen of quilts suggested cutting the exact design out after the heat and bond is ironed onto the fabric. Brilliant. It makes it so much easier to cut your design out with the extra Heat n Bond.

Peel the back of the Heat n Bond off.

Decide where to place the design and iron it down. Learn from my mistakes, put a protective barrier between what you are ironing on and your iron.

As easy as that, the dog is attached. Cute but I still wanted to add a little more flare.

To the button jar I went. I just so happened to have another cute flower button. Then, I embroidered a black collar. This doggie is a kept doggie, she belongs to Grace.

I am happy with the outcome.

And that's how you turn a sheepie into a pink polka dot doggie.

One of those days...

I was going to spare you any before pictures of my closet until I could show you pictures of its transformation BUT sometimes life throws you a curve ball.

We've been planning a closet remodel. It's one of the only rooms in our house that we haven't remodeled. It was last on the list of things to do because no one sees it and, though it wasn't the prettiest of rooms, it was functional, until yesterday...

Though I love old houses, I am not a fan of plaster walls. An 8 foot wire shelf ripped right out of the wall sending all my clothes flying in different directions.

If there was ever a question about investing in a closet remodel, I think that it was answered yesterday.

One step closer

I have big plans for my butler pantry.

I've mentioned before, I have dreams of installing a library ladder in our pantry. We've been scouring thrift stores, flea markets and perhaps my dad's shed for the perfect ladder. Lo and behold, in passing, we mentioned our plans to my husband's uncle AND it just so happened he had an actual library ladder.

It's about 4 feet longer than we need, but that can easily be corrected. This ladder has so much character and undoubtedly so much history.

I can't wait to see to see this ladder restored to its original condition, after the years of dirt are cleaned off and the ladder is refinished. Thankfully this is a project I'll happily be handing over to my husband.

Looks like our dream is one step closer to becoming a reality.

Initial Shirt

One of my favorite gifts Grace received for her birthday was an initial shirt from Red Balloon Company.

This past weekend, we were invited to a 3rd birthday party and I wanted to give an initial shirt as a gift BUT it comes with a steep price tag {for a tee shirt}.

I thought, maybe I could use Red Balloon's initial shirt as inspiration for my own design. So I bought a $6 shirt from Target.

Cue my Silhouette and their smooth heat transfer material. I created a design using 2 circles and inside of the circles, using the font Curlz MT, an L. I sent it through my Silhouette and removed the excess heat transfer material, leaving only the design I wanted to transfer.

Then, using an iron, I applied my design to the tee shirt. It may not be the official initial tee shirt but I think mine is just as cute {for a fraction of the cost}.

Having saved some money on my version of the initial tee shirt, I was also able to give a My Little Pony set {realizing a 3 year old won't care about clothes}. All that was left to do was wrap it, decorate it with a few 3s for good measure and deliver it.