Advent Calendar Crafting

Recently we had a Super Saturday craft event at church for the Relief Society in which many holiday craft projects were offered, from Halloween through Christmas. The project I picked was this AMAZING Christ centered advent calendar, which I am super thrilled about. After I made the advent calendar, some friends asked me about it on FB. I had all the ladies sign up if they were interested, and my friend Jen offered to host if we had enough girls that wanted to make one. Thus, advent calendar craft night was born!

On November 1st we all got together. Baby Kate had helped me do some prep work beforehand:

We laid out all of the scrapbook papers and put together everyone's project kits.

Actually, I have to give 99% credit for this whole thing to Jon. He cut ALL the wood pieces out for me and helped finish off the kits for all the ladies while I was at work. This whole craft night would not have happened without him! I am so thankful for a husband who supports my crazy ideas and helps me make things happen. He makes me look good!

I am also incredibly thankful to Tracy Baker and all her original work on coming up with this project and giving us all detailed instructions which I made copies of for everyone.

Jodi from Lucy Lews on ETSY who I ordered the vinyl through was also amazing. She helped me get everything cut and shipped at the last minute when my original gal fell through. I was so happy with the size and the fonts! I would recommend her store to anyone looking for affordable custom vinyl.

After all of the wood pieces were painted (we used colors Barn Red and Burnt Umber in the Ceramcoat acrylics) the ladies glued down their paper squares:

Vinyl words and numbers were applied for the days 1-25:

Adorable baby break! Breanna, Leila and Lindsey :)

Finishing nails held "The Savior" plaque in place and were hammered into the top of each scrapbook square making hooks for the tiles to hang on.

Gluing the pictures of Christ to the wood tiles was the final step. I loved how everyone had different Christ picture packs, so the calendars were all colorful and unique!

Here are the lovely ladies with their projects! (in various stages of completion)

Unfortunately Tiani, Lindsey and Jess were all not present for the picture. AND my phone distorted the picture when I sent it to my email and I just now realized, after having deleted all of the originals from my phone. So I'm sorry about Jen and Jody's heads being cut off :(

I'm so glad that we were able to do this craft night together and that even thought it was a pain in the butt getting all the materials together, I still enjoyed working on a Christ centered activity with friends and helping pass along the crafting spirit. Making something homemade for the home is what I love best! I can't wait to see everyone use these for Christmas this year :)