Woodland Animal Snow Globe ADVENT

An advent for my sister (and I made one for myself at the same time and Emily helped make the animals on both). This is the "Woodland Animal Christmas Snow Globe" ADVENT from SugarHouseShop on etsy. 

I love this advent!! Love it! I made this for my sister because I had made her an advent in the early 90's that is really outdated. I think my sister still loves it because she puts it out each year but I don't love it 😉

(SKIP ALL THE WRITTING BELOW IF YOU DON'T CARE HOW IT WAS MADE)

I made some alterations though after looking at these advents made by other people:

1.  The sides of theirs pulled when the pockets where full. 

So I made pockets with gussets. Totally solved that problem.

2. It's see through. And the felt looks cheap when see though. So I ironed Pellon Shape Flex interfacing (SF101) in white to the back before putting everything on. Totally Solved that problem.

3. I trimmed about 5" off the top white felt so there was less white showing between top of globe and dowel.

4. I only hand sewed the animals and embroidered the numbers. The instructions say to hand sew the the globe, tree, snow and base on to the background--I machine stitched. Also to hand sew the balls closed after inserting the magnets. I used a glue gun.

5. I didn't use any sequins. I'm not a sequins kind of girl.

6. I ironed on Wonder Under between the globe, tree, etc so they stayed on while I machined sewed. I used pins too but the thing still sags a little.

At the end is a picture of the plastic slip cover I made for it when it's being stored for the year. It's like a giant pillow case and the snaps are on the top so if any ornaments fall off the are caught in the bottom of the bag. It can be hung for storage or rolled.

Felt Campifire

A felt campfire for my sister! 

My sister is a 4th grade teacher and every year they do something called Westward Expansion/the Pioneer trail in her class (Emily did it in her class a couple months ago) It's an interactive game where students role play as settlers heading west on the wagon train. For one part of it my sister has the kids sit around a campfire. She had a paper campfire but it was falling apart sooo I made her a new one!

It was also her birthday present.

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I made this from looking at the one on the landofnod.com website, etsy sellers and tutorials/pictures found searching google. I'm contemplating making a pattern because mostly people are selling them already made. If you are a sewer it's really hard to buy finished products when you can sew it yourself! For cheaper. But I hate writing patterns so it may never happen.

The fire is in two parts and has one layer of Timtex in between the felt. Emily suggested I not sew down the orange fire and let it be floppy.

The logs are my favorite! 

The rocks are all sewn onto the mat because kids are little turds and will play with the rocks. In a classroom this is not good. Besides it makes clean up really easy as everything folds up and goes  neatly in an ikea shoe box. 

The log with the branch and leaves is my favorite of the 3 logs.

I used mostly wool blend felt from Benzie felt on etsy. The red and the brown are the only 100% wool felt from achildsdream.comhttp://www.achildsdream.com/ **Holland wool felt