Jesse Tree

I signed up to take part in a Jesse Tree Ornament swap with some fellow homeschool moms. We have monthly meetings that we attend together to encourage each other, laugh and discuss many different topics. I have only been to 2 meetings. During the first meeting there was a sign up sheet for this Jesse Tree ornament swap. I had always heard about the Jesse Tree but didn't really know exactly what it was. I signed up to take part in the swap and ordered this book that goes along with the ornaments from Amazon. If you click on the book picture, it will take you to the book on Amazon.

There are 25 total ornaments that are needed to do 25 days of advent with the Jesse Tree. Each lady signed up to make 25 of the same ornament and then on TEAM night we got together and swapped them out. I chose to make crosses.

I bought several bags of beads, some jewelry wire, E6000 adhesive, some ornament hooks and a pair of jewelry crimpers that I could roll the ends of the wire closed in a loop. I also purchased some heart shaped beads. Here's a picture of the crosses when they were finished:

You can see that I used the different colored hearts to place in the center of the cross. I also used the colored beads that I had to add some color here and there but other than that, I used clear beads. All of the beads have a little sparkle when the lights from the tree hits them just right. My girls thought they were so pretty when finished and they even helped me with a few of them. It took me a little while to work on them but it was peaceful and fun to do. I didn't use a set pattern for placing the beads on because I loved the randomness of the finished crosses. Each one is unique and beatiful in its own way. Just like we are.

I am going to spend today wrapping each ornament in a seperate box numbering them as I go along. The children will take turns opening one a day until all 25 have been opened and placed on the tree (Christmas day). I need to take a picture of the other ornaments that were made because they're all so pretty. Maybe I can take a picture a day of them as we open them.

I'm also going to spend some time finishing my advent boxes. I'll post more details and pictures about that later.

December Daily

We have quite a bit planned for the month of December. This blog has been created to help us document our month long celebration of Christ. We'll be using a combination of books, online sites and other random ideas to make our month meaningful and fun. I hope you will stop in to see what we're up to and feel free to add any recommendations or comments!

The first thing I would like to share is a very cool idea I picked up on Ali Edward's blog. It's called the December Daily. Check it out if you have a few minutes to. I really love the idea of keeping our own December Daily album. I'll use this blog to keep up with pictures and journaling and also add them to our December Daily album. I have to admit that I just came across this idea about 1 1/2 weeks ago. So, I didn't get the album put together before hand. Actually, I'm still waiting for a few key products to arrive tomorrow. If you read through her December Daily you'll find that you really don't have to order anything new. You can use what you already have on hand. I just wanted to get a few little neat extras. I'm hoping to create my album tomorrow evening. Oh! There's also a flickr group that you can check out. It was created just for the December Daily and there are a lot of creative ways to do this project with pictures on there.