Hi Friends,

Advent Giving Tree Tutorial

Christmas can get cluttered so easily can’t it? Christmas time sometimes brings my head down, the way it is so commercialized. I have to remind myself that it is an awesome opportunity to share the love of God in Christ.

It seems there are so many distractions from the true meaning of Christmas. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not an old party pooper who wants to squash everybody’s fun. It’s just that sometimes other “things” are replacing remembering the greatest gift God gave us.

This is a tutorial on creating an Advent Giving Tree…

I started doing an advent tree with my children way back when. We tied money to the advent tree. Daily we collected the money from the tree and when we saved enough we purchased canned goods for the local food pantry. Sometimes I would slip a lollipop in as well. Now I will encourage the kids to give to the bell ringing Salvation Army and continue with the purchase of canned goods for their local food pantry.

So below are my old and new advent giving trees, the one on the left is the old one, not too bad eh? And the one on the right is the one I made this week. I am giving it to my older grandchildren. I know this post should have been written and delivered just after Thanksgiving, but what can I say? I just had a new grand baby girl and she is awesome. I was busy :D.

The items you will need: 3/4 inch ribbon, glitter fabric glue, scissors, 1 dinner mat. ribbon or string

I picked up a dinner mat at my local Family Dollar Store for just a buck. I had the ribbon and glitter fabric glue already.

Cut Ribbon into 8, 4 and 2 inch strips

2-8 inch ribbon strips

8-4 inch ribbon strips

9-2 inch ribbon strips

Lay all the pieces on your dinner mat first to make sure all of them will fit. My largest pieces were a little less than 8 inches. You may need to adjust the size of your pieces if  your mat is larger or smaller. So the top long pieces going down are the 8 inch pieces, then use the 2 inch to jut in. Go back out with the 4 inch, and 2 inches jut back in again and repeat 2 more times. Square off the bottom with 4 inch strips and create the trunk with 3-2 inches strips. Glue all your pieces to the mat with the glitter fabric glue.

Use any piece of cloth to create a star, cut it out, glue it and outline the edges with glitter fabric glue.

Outline the outside edge of your tree with a thin line of glitter fabric glue.

Cut 25 piece of string 10 inches long, tie a knot in the middle of each string/thin ribbon. Lay the 25 knotted strings on your tree to see how they will fit. I used this combo going across 1, 2, 3, 3, 4, 3, 4, 2, 3. Next you glue the knotted string or ribbon to the tree.

Put a dot of glue and carefully place the knot of the string in the middle of the glue dot. I used a pen cap to gently press it in place. Add a little glue across the knot on top, it make it lood like a button. As you can see I used 2 different strings, if I were to do it over I would only use one. If you really want to use 2 different strings just make sure they are of the same material, yarn and ribbon are not a good match because the yarn stretches. 

This  process takes a few different sessions as you don’t want things to get moved and stuck to each other. It could get messy and ruin your project if you don’t take your time here. The glued knots need to dry in between before adding more. You can apply about 2 rows at a time by moving the string tails in positions that allow a 2nd row. Very carefully…This is not a project for young children.

When all 9 of your rows are added and dry, you can now add your scriptures.

I printed my words in a dark wine color and used a heavier stock of paper. When you glue the paper to the dinner mat put your glue on the outer edges. I applied mine in the center and it smudged the letters a bit because of the glues moisture. 

Put a line of glitter fabric glue to overlap on the dinner mat and paper. weigh it down with coins so it will not move.

Scriptures I used are…

” …Walk in the way of love,

just as Christ loved us and

gave himself up for us…”

Matthew 5:1 NIV

” Jesus himself said:

‘It is more blessed to give

 than to receive.’ ”

Acts 20:35 NIV

Tie your dollars to the tree.

Some awesome family advent resources:

Preparing to Celebrate Christ’s Birth–“Arrival” by Billy Graham 

Our Daily Bread App info.

I will redeem my tardiness and make this a project one that you can use in the near future. Create the same idea but use the shape of a heart for Valentines Day. Talk about how loving is an act of giving. 

Have a Wonderful Christmas Season!

Ms. Dawn

Now be a sweetie and please share this post. Please make a comment to let me know if you enjoy this sort of post.