-- 2011 Advent Calendar --

Over the weekend I made another project that I had pinned to Pinterest.  This one was specifically for my husband Lucas.  He's a fairly awesome guy to have around and he goes crah - ray - zee over Christmas so I wanted to do something that would make the season seem really great.

- Lucas if you are reading... avert your eyes :) -

The idea came from here and the premise is simple - its an advent calendar so they open an envelope each day that contains either a compliment, a special treat or a plan for some time spent together.  I included about a third of each.

My first step was making 24 messages.  This was seriously the hardest part for me.  I consulted my calendar to make sure we weren't planning a date night on an evening where I knew I'd have to stay late at work etc...  I made mine using simple text boxes in MS Word and printed them out on regular printer paper.

My messages ranged any where from cheesy compliments, to free back massages, to a night planned walking around a local park to check out the Christmas lights.

I also printed out some numbers in a neat font (here's a link to the numbers that I used) and glued them onto some Christmas-y printed scrapbooking paper.

Then I inserted the messages in a larger rectangle of a coordinating scrapbooking paper which I folded into a mini envelope.

After sticking my date/number label on top of the envelope opening I had my little advent packages...

What?  You use your treadmill for running?  Whatever...

I chose to hang each of the envelopes on our tree with a little ornament hanger.

And then....

This happened 2 hours later while Lucas was watering the tree.

Such disappointment.

We had a few casualties in the form of broken ornaments and soaked advent packages.  But I just finished redecorating the tree.  Lets just say that decorating it the second time was not quite as satisfying as the first time.  I'll share the finished product later this week.

Visit here for other Christmas craft projects: