Last Minute Advent Pendant

Cheery Advent pendant

My kids have been asking, “How many days until Christmas?” ever since the stores started hauling out the Christmas stuff.

So pretty much forever.

Now that it’s actually December, I wanted to give them a way to count down the days until Christmas without having to ask me thirty times a day (not that I don’t love that).

We have done Advent calendars in the past: you know, those flimsy little drug store calendars filled with tiny bits of chocolate that fall out on the wrong days and make kids cry. I’ve had stacks of them on top of my fridge every Christmas for the past few years, and I am always so happy to throw them away on Christmas Eve because they no longer look charming and everyone is kinda bitter about the fact that we spent actual money on them.

This year (read: yesterday) I decided I wanted to do something different. With Jeff deploying to Africa just a few weeks after Christmas, these days are precious. In one sense, the countdown to Christmas is also a countdown to his departure.

There is not enough chocolate in the world to make me want to count down to that.

Instead, I wanted to celebrate each day we have together, and each day we count down to the most glorious miracle of Christ’s birth, with a calendar that focuses on the time we have as a family.

Advent pendant garland over what my landlord calls “caramel” colored walls.

I decided to make an Advent pendant banner using Christmas card stock. Now, I thought of this brilliant idea at exactly 2:45 yesterday afternoon, and at exactly 2:45 yesterday afternoon, I realized I did not have Christmas card stock.

Off to Hobby Lobby I went. Except Hobby Lobby is closed on Sunday. Off to Walmart I went! Except Walmart was a bust. Off to Target I went (at this point, I was absolutely not going to be back in five minutes like I had promised). Target had one option for Christmas card stock, and after fighting my way through the crowds of people buying stuffed Olafs, I did not even care what the paper looked like. Christmas card stock: check!

I realized later that I could have used plain paper and it would have worked just fine. Alas.

Creating the pendants is a breeze. Each of my card stock squares was 6×6 inches, so I cut each square in half with my paper cutter (you can also use scissors). That gave me two 3×6 rectangles. I cut the rectangles from the top corners to the bottom center, giving me two triangle pendants from each square of card stock.

24 triangles later, I assembled my banner on a jute string using two dabs of hot glue on each corner of the pendants.

DIY Advent calendar

Viola! My Advent banner was assembled.

Now, your temptation at this point will be to make this more complicated than it needs to be. But mammas, it is December 1^st and you are thinking of making an Advent calendar. The over-achiever Christmas crafty train left way back in October.

We are now in Get ‘Er Done mode.

So, you could add decorations to your pendants. You could. Don’t.

Advent garland

I did add two little buttons on the ends of the jute string while I was waiting for my hot glue gun to heat up, but I gave myself a good talking to when I considered adding little decorations to each pendant. That’s crazy talk right there.

However, I happened to have a scalloped, round paper punch so I did punch out 24 circles for the dates. If you do not have a scalloped paper punch, do not panic. This step is completely optional. You could write the dates directly on the banners, or add bits of ribbon or strips of paper for the dates.

I affixed each date to a pendant using a big glob of hot glue to give dimension to the date circles. Once they dried, I ran my finger under the edge to make sure the date circles popped up a little.

Then, I simply wrote the dates on with gold Sharpie, flipped the banner over, and added a fun Advent activity to the back of each pendant.

Advent ideas

Could not be easier.

A simple, gold-Sharpied clothespin helps us keep track of the days. Just move it over one day as you count down to Christmas.

Advent pendant

Now, if you have trouble thinking of Advent activities, you’re probably trying to get on that over-achiever train again. Stop it. Christmas does not have to be crazy, bigger-than-life, or expensive to be wonderful. In fact, your Advent list can include many of the things you already do during the Christmas season:

*Bake cookies

*Watch The Nutcracker

*Go to the church Christmas program

*Have cocoa and candy canes

*Make a gingerbread house

*Read The Night Before Christmas

*Go caroling

*Make gifts for teachers and friends

*Deliver cookies to neighbors

*Attend a Christmas concert

*Take the Polar Express to look at Christmas lights

*Make snowflakes

*Go ice skating

*Make a Christmas craft

*Read the Christmas story

*Look at pictures of past Christmases

*Sip eggnog around the Christmas tree

*Make homemade marshmallows

*Watch Frosty the Snowman

*Read How the Grinch Stole Christmas

*Volunteer at a local charity

*Play in the snow!

*Reenact the Christmas story

*Draw names and do something nice for another family member

*Open ONE present (this is our activity for the last day of Advent–Christmas Eve!)

You get the idea. The goal is to be intentional about spending time together, doing the things you love to do, creating memories as a family. Each day, have the kids write about the activity on the back of that day’s pendant. After the Christmas season is over, you’ll have a memory to cherish.

And isn’t that better than cheap chocolate? Any day.

Countdown to Christmas

How to Fix Furniture with Mayo

Last Friday, we got a bigger dining room table. It’s from Pottery Barn, ya’ll. Remember my love affair with Pottery Barn?

Even though it isn’t new, it’s the only thing in my house from Pottery Barn (and probably always will be), Better yet, all my kids can fit around it with room for company (as long as that company doesn’t have personal space issues), so I kind of love it.

Two days after we hauled that baby into the dining room, I scorched the top. If you follow my Five in Tow Facbebook page, you already heard the confession. Basically, I plunked my red-hot cast-iron Dutch oven smack down on top of that thing, and even though I had hot pads underneath the pot, it didn’t matter.

When I cleared the table after dinner, I saw a huge, ugly white mark right in the middle of the table. I ruined my Pottery Barn table two days after taking possession of it!

This is why we can’t have nice stuff. I am not worthy.

I almost burst into tears right then and there. Then I remembered some old trick involving mayonnaise and wood. Really, that’s all I had. I couldn’t even remember what the mayo was supposed to help with but I grabbed the jar from the fridge and smeared some right on that horrific mark.

It disappeared.

I could not believe it. I can have nice things after all! I can!

In my distress about the table, I did not think to take a picture before smearing on the condiments, but I did post my success to Facebook. I went on there and told you all how to fix furniture with mayo.

That started an interesting question. Some of you had heard of the ol’ mayo trick but had not had such stellar results. You were sad because you could not fix your furniture with mayo.

That got me thinking. I had some ideas of why my table responded so well to the mayonnaise, and it had to do with heat. The spot on my table was still warm when I applied the mayo, and I wondered if that had anything to do with the amazing results.

I decided to do some experimenting.

CAN MAYO REALLY FIX FURNITURE?

It just so happens that I also ruined another piece of furniture a few years ago (see note above about not being able to have nice things). My mother-in-law gave me an antique dresser when we first got married. Technically, she loaned it to me, but I’ve got squatter’s rights on it now.

Besides, there’s the awkward fact that I made a huge watermark on the top of that very dresser because I didn’t realize the fern I had watered completely overflowed. Water pooled up under the pot and sat there grinning until I noticed it later that night.

By then, it was too late.

I didn’t know what to do so I’ve been hiding that awful spot under piles of clothing for the last two years. My husband thinks I’m a slob. Really, I just can’t have nice things (see note above).

Do you think she’d notice something is different about it? I mean, it has been a few years.

It seemed this piece of furniture was prime for a little..experimentation (my husband agrees, especially if experimentation is synonymous with burning). If anything screams, “You’ve got nothing to lose!” it’s this dresser.

First, I smeared mayonnaise all over the watermark and let it sit. I didn’t notice much, if any, difference. Some of the very faint marks looked a little better, but it was negligible.

It was time to test my hypothesis.

SO…I got out my hair dryer. Holy smokes. Check out what happened.

I put the hair-dryer on high, and half-an-hour later, it looked like this:

That’s a two-year-old, nasty watermark, and it almost disappeared! In case you forgot how horrific it looked before, here’s the side-by-side:

I noticed that the darker places were the peaks of the mayo. In other words, the places where the mayo was the thickest turned out the darkest.

So I went gangster with the mayo on that watermark.

Overkill, perhaps?

This time, I heated the wood before I applied the mayonnaise. Then, I smeared it on thick and hit it with more heat. I know you’re thinking, “I don’t have time to blow-dry a dresser.” Neither do I. So, I rigged up this high-tech automatic blow-drying device. Ta-da!

After three rounds, the dresser looks like this:

Now, it’s not perfect, especially since the water damage actually changed the texture of the top of the dresser. But it’s significantly better than it was earlier today. Given the level of damage on this particular piece of furniture, I’d say the mayonnaise did an amazing job! In fact, I could probably get away with putting just one bird on it.

MAYO FOR THE WIN!

I’m pretty convinced. Mayonnaise does an amazing job of restoring furniture damage due to heat, water, or (ahem) neglect.

What does this mean?

We can all have nice things! (Just keep the mayo close by).

Simply Homemade: Bells and Burlap Wreath

This post is part of the Simply Homemade series. To see the rest of the posts, start here.

Well, things have not been going as planned over at the Glover household. I don’t know about you, but Christmas is a study in flexibility, and I don’t mean seeing if you can still touch your toes after eating all that peppermint bark. Schedules get rearranged, simple errands take longer than usual, and sometimes, instead of doing the things you should, you opt for a long winter’s nap.

So. Today’s post was supposed to involve fabric, scissors, and the Oh-So-Scary sewing machine. It doesn’t. My plans were derailed because someone forgot to take pictures of the final result of the sewing project and didn’t realize it until the dark of night when it was too late to do anything about it.

Enter the Backup Plan. Instead of doing a project involving minimal sewing skills, we’re doing to do a project involving minimal gluing skills. Yippee! Here’s a sneak peak:

Bells and Burlap Wreath

Okay, that wasn’t really a sneak peak. That was more like the reveal. But it’s Christmas, and aren’t we all tired of waiting for the good stuff?

Now you’ll just have to stick with me while I back this train up and tell you all about my Bells and Burlap Wreath after you’ve already seen it.

Whilst walking around my favorite charity the other day (ahem, Hobby Lobby), I spotted these fabulous burlap canvases on sale. I snagged one in a lovely shade of 12×12.

I wasn’t quite sure what to do with it until we walked past a whole herd of jingle bells, also on sale. Now, I’ve always wanted to make a jingle bell wreath but I’ve never done it. I said to myself, “What could be easier than making a jingle bell wreath on burlap?” Practically nothing!

We hauled it home and got started. This is what we did:

Step 1: Make a Circle

Find a plate or a bowl to use as a guide to draw a circle on the burlap. Do not center it. Leave more space at the top of the canvas than the bottom because you will be adding a bow later and you don’t want it looking weird.

Step 2: Add Jingle Bells

I bought a package of 75 bells for this project (and hoped it would be enough). You could use more, but I wouldn’t use any less. I was barely squeaking by with the bells I had but I didn’t want to go back to Hobby Lobby because I swear, it costs me $50 just to walk in the door.

Using a hot glue gun, glue the jingle bells to the burlap. Place them together side-by-side on the circle you drew. Then, create an inner circle but this time, space the bells a bit apart so they don’t look too planned or perfect. Wreaths should be random!

Kya, my seven-year-old daughter, put the bells on the burlap and you can see they got a little bunchy at the bottom, but it doesn’t matter. After you create an inner circle, randomly glue a few bells on top of the bottom two rows. Adding the extra layer of bells makes everything even out. See?

Step 3: Add a Bow

Make a bow with some nice wide ribbon and secure it to the burlap with a bit of glue. It helps to tack down the dangling parts of the bow too so it all stays where it should.

Also, I should have ironed it. Oops.

Now, you could be done at this point. I thought I was until I asked my husband what he thought of my project and he did that thing that husbands do where their eyes glaze over and they say, “Ummm…”

Apparently, it needed a little something-something more. So…

Step 4: Embellish

If you look back to the first picture in this post, you’ll see that I added “stuff.” But wait–don’t scroll up. Here it is again:

Jeff thought my Bells and Burlap wreath needed a little green. He also thought there was too much space in the middle. I could have added another layer of bells, but like I said before, there was the whole problem of entering Hobby Lobby for “one thing” and coming out $50 poorer.

Instead, I decided to use what I had on hand (what a concept). I added a cardboard gift tag with the word “Noel” (because I like that word) and some smaller bells on ribbon. There’s also a sprig of green, just for my guy.

He said it was an improvement so I kissed him.

Step 5: Give (or Keep) Your Bells and Burlap Wreath

You could give your project away. That’s the whole point of this series, right? Or, you could realize that the Bells and Burlap Wreath is the perfect addition to that shelf you have in the stairway.

Ahem.

Looks like I might have to go back to Hobby Lobby after all.

P.S. Save yourself the trouble and make two from the get-go.

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