Homeschooling Saturday Week Six - Homemade Advent Calenders

Welcome to Homeschooling Saturday, week six! Homeschooling Saturday is a recap of our favorite craft(s) or activity we've done in the past couple of weeks.
This week, we've been busy making advent calenders. Why buy when you can make ones that are beautiful and meaningful with things you've already got around the home?
We made this beautiful Mary and baby Jesus:

I took the template provided, and instead of using that to trace, deleted the labels on everything and printed those out to color. Then I copied and pasted the stars into one document and I used those for my calender, the kids are just using star stickers.

Here is the star template I created. Keep in mind I in no way am taking credit for it, in fact it has the original link on it. It just took me a while to save the format provided (had to screen shot it eventually) so I thought this might save a step or two for some people: http://nantucketknitter.com/pdf/stars1.pdf.
Everyone painted whatever background they wanted onto poster-board:

And we colored in everything...

...and then glitter glue and metallic colored pencils got involved:

After the year and a half everything took to dry, I started to cut it all out and lay them out onto the poster board to number where the stars and baby Jesus would go as the days of December pass. (Days one - 23 are small stars, 24 is the North Star, and 25 is baby Jesus.)

I totally ignored where the stars go about halfway through, and just numbered where I thought they should go from some picture in my head. Which was a mistake, if you look closely at the finished product up above, you can see my attempts at erasing them. At least I did that on my own, not the kids'! This idea is from: http://www.thatartistwoman.org
We're also working on a funky tree calender:

Each tree will have a little trinket or confection in it. I was supposed to use Washi tape, but I have no idea where to even find that on Nantucket, so we stuck with regular old translucent. Not as polished looking, but when you've got rainbow trees, who cares?!
I am mostly using super inexpensive (cheap) things like mini candy canes, plastic ornaments and small chocolate bears, but for a few of them I did little things of princess chap-stick (Little M gets super chapped lips in the winter, so we always have a bunch of them) and bangles. On the 24th, I put in Cinderella nail polish.
I have no idea where this feminine little girl came from, she certainly didn't get it from me!
The idea for this one came from Etsy: https://www.etsy.com/blog/en/2010/make-a-geometric-tree-advent-calendar/.

That was what we did this week. What did you all do for homeschool this week?

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I have decided to make this into a Linky Party! Please link up to Homeschooling Saturday with anything at all to do with homeschooling you and your little ones did this week! If you want, awesome. If no one wants, no problem!
If you do decide to link up, please just link back from your post to this post! You can use this picture if you want:

Use this code:

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Friday Finishes

Welcome to the very first Friday Finishes linky party!
Link up on Fridays with any finish you wish to share: craft, homework, dinner, baking, getting the cranky child to bed - well you get the idea.
I was perusing a book store on the island the other day and came across this darling little kit:

Now, I do not do a lot of sewing. Sometimes I embroider, and do a little of this and that, but it's not something I've ever been able to really get into. But this kit called my name! I decided, why not give it a try?

The contents of the kit. This is real wool stuffing. I only work with polyester fiberfill to keep things machine washable. I have never actually felt real wool stuffing. Wowzers, it was just about the softest stuff ever.

The pieces were easy to cute out of felt. I think if I make any more of these, they will definitely be out of felt - no worrying about the edges unraveling!

Mister birdy, all finished, hanging in a window. I think I am going to add another string further down the body to make him hang at a better angle. But I love him! I have no idea what I am going to do with him, though!
Now, I keep thinking of another super cute sewing kit in the same store. A set of Russian dolls in a cute tin. And we got some Trick-or-Treating in, which I am considering something we finished this week!

Surverying her booty!That's what I've finished this week. Now, what about you?

This week, I finished a couple of commissioned hats:

I love these hats. I love the angora/merino wool they're made out of, it's super soft and yummy. Maybe someday I'll add an adult size to the pattern!
Ravelled here: http://ravel.me/NataliesKnits/aebth3
Also, I made some Knucks:
I have been knitting my fingers off for a very long time now, with commissions (which I love that I am getting!) plus I've been renting tables at markets for my wares. And I enjoy knitting to no end, but for the past week or so, I've been feeling burned out. So, I decided it was time to make something for myself:

KNUCKS! I ran into this pattern on knitty.com when it first came out, and always meant to make it. My favorite kind of glove is the one with the half fingers, but I've never attempted them. (Well, I did once, but never finished the second glove.)
This pattern is great. The fingers are knit first, so the fiddliest bit is out of the way. Not that the fingers are really fiddly at all - they probably took me half an hour start to finish.
These are knit in DK weight, so they're super quick. (By the way, the coloring in the photo with just the fingers done it the most accurate. It's a real pretty pale blue.)
Ravelled here: http://ravel.me/NataliesKnits/k1And I made a pair of Vehnän Mitts.

Another super quick knit, using Dk weight yarn and size five needles.
Ravelled here: http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/vehnan-mitts
Linking up to Friday Finishes, join in the fun at Smiles are Contagious!
Flaunt it Fridays.


Friday Finishes - Join in the fun.

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Friday Finishes - A New Linky Party

I miss having a linky party on Fridays so much, I decided to to start my own Friday linky. Plus, having a reason to have a finish every week isn't a bad thing either.
Please join me this Friday, and hopefully many thereafter, in this party! You can post any finish, from knitting, sewing, crocheting, cooking, even finishing that book you keep meaning to pick up! Hey, even cleaning your house. Anything you finished over the week, link here on Fridays!
I am going to be hosting the party on this Blog, as my other one I try to keep just for knitting, and I will probably want to link to other projects as well.
When you join, just link back to my blog in your post with my Friday Finishes button, or a link, whatever, and try to leave comments on anyone else who enters - I hope others enter! *Finger's Crossed.*