Hello and Happy Fall! I’m sooo excited to be guest posting on one of my favorite blogs today. Lil Luna is such a fun and beautiful place. I absolutely adore Kristyn- she has been so nice and helpful to me, especially when I first started my blog. Click here for the post on her blog! 

*Update: The full tutorial is now included in this post.

I am showing you the Thanksgiving Advent Tree that I just made for our family countdown to Thanksgiving! I’ll tell you how I made it too. The idea is to have one leaf fall every day, until Thanksgiving. I have a little pocket in each leaf that holds a piece of paper, so we can do Thanksgiving related activities together, or write things we’re grateful for.

burlap- whatever size you desire

brown flannel

felt- gold, orange, red, brown, green, etc.

ribbon

sewing machine and notions

Step 1: Cut your burlap to the size you want. Mine in pretty big, and its not perfectly shaped, which I actually like. Then, freehand draw a tree. Cut it out, and turn it over so you can’t see your pen marks.

Step 2: Iron interfacing to your tree. Use a press cloth between the iron and your fabric to avoid sticky residue on your iron. Cut out.

Step 3: Pin your tree to the burlap. Zig zag stitch the whole thing!

Step 4: Make your leaves. This year you only need 24, but makes extras because Thanksgiving is on a different day each year. I drew a shape on a piece of paper, and used it as my leaf template. I sewed decorative stitching down the middle of each leaf, and designed each leaf a little different. Mine are two layers, because I wanted to be able to use them as a pocket to hold a piece of paper. So, do your decorative stitch to the top layer, then sew the two layers together on the border of each leaf.

Then I free-hand cut out these letters and sewed them to a piece of felt. Nothing too fancy for this project, but that’s how I like it!

Last, sew ribbon or attach it to a dowel so you can hang it on the wall.

That’s pretty much it! You just have to figure out how to adhere the leaves to the burlap. I just used scotch tape for now, but I’m still scheming a better way. If you have any ideas, I’d love to hear them in a comment!  xo, Rach H