Advent Tree: Woodland Style

It would appear the count down to Christmas has started in earnest, especially on this grand day: 12/12/12!

Interesting fact: It will be another 88 years and 1 month (01/01/2101) until the very youngest of us will see another date like this. 

Did that just blow your mind, like it has blown mine?  Now that the 12 days of Christmas has commenced, I thought it was time to revisit an old friend...  that is if you consider a faux 15 inch Christmas tree a "friend". 

Aedan really enjoyed his advent tree of last year:

As the advent tree was activity based, Aedan really looked forward to finding out what his special "task" was for the day and I loved any excuse to just have him all to myself. 

Since it was such a hit, we decided to do it again this time however to be in keeping with our current  theme this Christmas. Lately, I have been loving all things plaid, so out with the green envelopes and welcome some Scottish Tartan envelopes.

Making mini envelopes:

We used the same technique in make the envelopes as we did last year, the only difference is that I have changed the pattern. 

1.  I used Powerpoint in creating my envelope hearts. Why not photoshop or any other photo editing software? I find printing them from Powerpoint (or any software on Microsoft Office Suite) is true on printed paper and I do not need to calibrate the page size or resolution of the image. This year as mentioned earlier we went with a tartan background on an upside down heart.  I printed the pages and cut the hearts out. If you had a cutting machine you can skip out this step. 

2. Flip the heart over. The bottom half will serve as the "enveloping" part of the envelope. 

3. Fold in the sides of the heart. I would make sure when folding it that the fold is as straight as you can make it. 

4. Fold the bottom section up, to the preferred height and size and fold the top pointed section so it will secure into the new pocket that has just been created. 

5. Bam. You are done. At this point I added all the activity slips I created earlier, below are some examples or ideas for activities that we use.

Our Advent Tree 2012

Last year we did the whole advent shahbaz from Dec 1st to Dec 24th,  however this year we have deviated slightly by starting on the 12th and working our way to Christmas. It was a combination of me being swapped with work and Aedan having 2 other advent calendars.

 I am treating this advent tree like orange juice and am concentrating it.  All the goodness of a 24 day count down to a 12 day count down of glory... that is my story people and I am sticking to it!!

So with out further ado here is our Advent 2012 tree:

We have already started our advent tree with a bang by going to watch a movie in the cinemas: Nativity 2: Danger in the Manger. Aedan was very much excited and can't wait to open day 13. Poor kid is in for a treat when he reads that his activity will be to clean his room by order of the management. LOL


Take care guys!

Partying it up at:

Savvy Southern Style
Clean & Scentsible