Cornucopia of Creativity: November “Be Thankful” Advent Calendar {All Things Belle}

Today I will be shar­ing how to make my “Thank­ful Advent”. My kid­dos & I love advent cal­en­dars. It’s a great way for them to learn num­bers and bet­ter under­stand the con­cept of time. Com­ing off the heals of a candy heavy Hal­loween and with a choco­late Christ­mas advent wait­ing for Decem­ber 1st, I really wanted to cre­ate a fun advent cal­en­der that had noth­ing to with treats and every­thing to do with..being thankful!

Thanks­giv­ing is such a beau­ti­ful hol­i­day that I sadly think is swept under the rug in the hol­i­day rush. It is a great time to remem­ber all the bless­ings we have and to take a moment to really appre­ci­ate it. With my advent you don’t fill it with treats or toys, instead each day your fam­ily will write what they are thank­ful for on a lit­tle note to place in each pocket. At the end of the month you will be amazed by all the won­der­ful bless­ings in your life. I think it’s a great way to start the Christ­mas sea­son appre­ci­at­ing what you already have rather than what you think you want.
Mate­ri­als Needed:

(2) Fat quar­ters of fabric

18″ square of fusible fleece

2 1/2 yards of dou­ble fold bias tape

large piece of soft burlap

scrap pieces of coor­di­nat­ing fabric

but­ton

rib­bon

1.) Cut the fat quar­ters into (2) 18″ squares.

2.) Choose which square will be your front and place the back aside for now. Cut a piece of the burlap into a 14“x2” rec­tan­gle. You can either pin or spray baste it on to the top of the front square (seen below).
3.)Iron on the fusible fleece to the back of the square. I used fusible fleece for this project because there is not a lot of quilt­ing and I didn’t want the bat­ting to move around.
4.) Stitch on your burlap title. I did a fun zig zag stitch — this also reduces the amount of fray that will occur. I then free motioned “Be Thank­ful” with some applique hearts. I have a real basic tuto­r­ial on free motion sewing here. I love doing it, but if it is more than you want to tackle right now you can write the words with a fab­ric pen or embroi­der it by hand.
5.) Next you will cut 30 ran­dom sized rec­tan­gles from the scrap fab­ric. This will be the col­or­ful place­ment of our pock­ets. You will then sew each lit­tle rec­tan­gle on to the fabric.

*TIP — place a small dab of glue stick on the back of the rec­tan­gle before you sew them down. It will stop the fab­ric from shift­ing while you work.

*NO SEW ALTERNATIVE — Iron on heavy fusible web­bing to the rec­tan­gles and then iron on to the top. This is not likely to need wash­ing so the fusible web­bing will keep the rec­tan­gles on with­out sewing a stitch!

6.)Pin baste your advent top to the bot­tom — you want wrong sides together. If your top and bot­tom are not yet the same size, cut them down now.
7.)Using the dou­ble fold bias tape, bind your advent as desired. Since this is a craft project I decided to machine bind it,but of course feel free to do it by hand if you pre­fer.
8.)Free motion sew the num­bers 1–30 on the remain­ing burlap. If you don’t want to free motion, you can embroi­der them by hand or use a fab­ric marker. Next you will sew the 30 pock­ets on to the advent calender.

**Be care­ful! Remem­ber that these are your pock­ets — only sew the sides and the bot­tom. Keep the tops open! (See image below)

9.) You’re almost done! On the back of the advent find the cen­ter and stitch on a large but­ton about an inch down from the top. Tie your rib­bon together and hang from the but­ton.
10.)Hang your super adorable Thank­ful Advent cal­en­der!
11.)Each day take a moment with your chil­dren and spouse to appre­ci­ate the bless­ings in your life. Write them on a lit­tle note and place in the coor­di­nat­ing pocket.
I think you will be amazed by how young chil­dren really under­stand and enjoy this activ­ity. My 3 year old daugh­ter never wants to just stop at one per day. It is impor­tant to find and appre­ci­ate the lit­tle things in our lives.

Thank you so much for spend­ing this time with me. I would be so touched if you decided to make an advent & I would love to see it! I hope you will stop my blog, All Things Belle for more sewing fun! Thank you Mom Endeav­ors for this chance to share in this won­der­ful hol­i­day. Wish­ing you & your read­ers a deli­cious and warm Thanksgiving!