{"id":18357,"date":"2023-11-30T16:00:15","date_gmt":"2023-12-01T00:00:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sanaeishida.com\/?p=18357"},"modified":"2023-12-01T08:16:03","modified_gmt":"2023-12-01T16:16:03","slug":"2023-advent-calendar-the-final-one","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sanaeishida.com\/?p=18357","title":{"rendered":"2023 Advent Calendar – The Final One"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"This is it, my friends. The final Advent Calendar for my not-so-little girl. Next year around this time, she\u2019ll be somewhere on a college campus, taking exams or grabbing food from the dorm cafeteria on her way to a class. The daunting phrase is looming above me all the time lately: empty nester<\/em>. I have a plethora of thoughts on that. But I won’t go into them right now.<\/p>\n

For 11 straight years, I\u2019ve handcrafted a different advent calendar during the month of November to set it up by the last day of the month. I can’t believe we’ve come to this point.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Mushrooms. And acorns. K has an abiding love of shrooms (strictly decorative, mind you \u2014 at least as far as I know). Since greens and browns and neutral hues are her faves, I used those as the color palette guide for these sweet wool felt \u201cornaments.\u201d And yes, I embroidered each one by hand, though I machine-stitched the actual mushroom\/acorn shapes. As per usual, I added a touch of gold by painting a sheet of watercolor paper and punching out little circles.<\/p>\n

\"\"It\u2019s a similar concept to last year\u2019<\/strong>s<\/a> in that each day she\u2019ll transfer a mushroom or an acorn to the Christmas tree as part of the countdown. I used these Merchant and Mills French safety pins<\/a><\/strong>, which I\u2019ve had tucked away in my sewing desk. Cute, right? They work perfectly for this set-up because the clasp part grips nicely to the twine and she can easily remove each ornament. I could have gone blingier and bigger and way over the top for the grand finale, but this simple and homespun advent calendar feels just right.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

I am quite emotional right now. K and I have been working on her college applications these past few months, and she\u2019s nearly done (only two more schools to go!). So many changes afoot, so many amazing developments.<\/p>\n

There are a billion other things going on, but for today I just wanted to share this assortment of fungi and oaknuts. Also! I included a couple of other store-bought advent calendars with chocolates and teas to add to the fun:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Incidentally, I hand-dyed the silk fabric under the advent calendars with red onion skins — I spent a delightful day with my awesome friend Rachel<\/a>, who taught me many, many ways to dye with plants. We even did some indigo dyeing! More on that later!<\/div>\n
 <\/div>\n
At any rate, for some nostalgia, here are all the advent calendars from the past:<\/div>\n

2022<\/a><\/p>\n

2021<\/a><\/p>\n

2020<\/a><\/p>\n

2019<\/a><\/p>\n

2018<\/a><\/p>\n

2017<\/a><\/p>\n

2016<\/a><\/p>\n

2015<\/a><\/p>\n

2014<\/a><\/p>\n

2013<\/a><\/p>\n

Alright, it\u2019s time for me to design some stuff. I\u2019ll be back in the next couple of weeks with the annual holiday tags and other downloadable goodies!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This is it, my friends. The final Advent Calendar for my not-so-little girl. Next year around this time, she\u2019ll be somewhere on a college campus, taking exams or grabbing food from the dorm cafeteria on her way to a class. The daunting phrase is looming above me all the time lately: empty nester. I have a plethora of thoughts on that. But I won’t go into them right now. For 11 straight years, I\u2019ve handcrafted a different advent calendar during the month of November to set it up by the last day of the month. I can’t believe we’ve come to this point. Mushrooms. And acorns. K has an abiding love of shrooms (strictly decorative, mind you \u2014 at least as far as I know). Since greens and browns and neutral hues are her faves, I used those as the color palette guide for these sweet wool felt \u201cornaments.\u201d And yes, I embroidered each one by hand, though I machine-stitched the actual mushroom\/acorn shapes. As per usual, I added a touch of gold by painting a sheet of watercolor paper and punching out little circles. It\u2019s a similar concept to last year\u2019s in that each day she\u2019ll transfer a mushroom or an acorn to the Christmas tree as part of the countdown. I used these Merchant and Mills French safety pins, which I\u2019ve had tucked away in my sewing desk. Cute, right? They work perfectly for this set-up because the clasp part grips nicely to the twine and she can easily remove each ornament. I could have gone blingier and bigger and way over the top for the grand finale, but this simple and homespun advent calendar feels just right. I am quite emotional right now. K and I have been working on her college applications these past few months, and she\u2019s nearly done (only two more schools to go!). So many changes afoot, so many amazing developments. There are a billion other things going on, but for today I just wanted to share this assortment of fungi and oaknuts. Also! I included a couple of other store-bought advent calendars with chocolates and teas to add to the fun: Incidentally, I hand-dyed the silk fabric under the advent calendars with red onion skins — I spent a delightful day with my awesome friend Rachel, who taught me many, many ways to dye with plants. We even did some indigo dyeing! More on that later!   At any rate, for some nostalgia, here are all the advent calendars from the past: 2022 2021 2020 2019 2018 2017 2016 2015 2014 2013 Alright, it\u2019s time for me to design some stuff. I\u2019ll be back in the next couple of weeks with the annual holiday tags and other downloadable goodies!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-18357","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-sewing","7":"entry","8":"has-post-thumbnail"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sanaeishida.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18357","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sanaeishida.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sanaeishida.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sanaeishida.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sanaeishida.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=18357"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/sanaeishida.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18357\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18369,"href":"https:\/\/sanaeishida.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18357\/revisions\/18369"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sanaeishida.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=18357"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sanaeishida.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=18357"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sanaeishida.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=18357"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}