How to Make a Jesse Tree (for the craft and planning impaired)

Here is how I made this felt Jesse Tree for Advent.  It was a little time consuming, but well worth the effort!  (Thanks to my daughter for the photo and explaining the internet to me).

Step 1.   Look through Mom blogs, even if doing so fills you with feelings of sadness and inadequacy, until you find a Jesse Tree project that seems to be at your skill level and does not require any really expensive materials.  I suggest this one.

Step 2.  Forget to buy the felt, and make the project with construction paper instead, because you've got a huge stack of it anyway.  Promise yourself you'll do it the right way next year.

Step 3.  Next year buy the felt and work frantically to get the last ornament done before bedtime on Christmas Eve.  Since you can't find your glue gun, use craft glue which doesn't actually work on felt so that bits keep falling off the ornaments.  Try not to lose the bits.  Promise yourself that next year you'll get a glue gun and fix the ornaments, cause you're sure as heck not cutting out all that felt again.

Step 4.  Next year, discover that you have somehow lost the ornaments.  Throw up your hands in disgust and go eat some of the chocolate you got for your kids' stockings.  Don't worry.  You can buy more later.

Step 5.  Next year buy some more felt and and a brand new glue gun. Start the ornaments over again.  But only make five before you and your whole family catch colds.  Promise yourself you'll do the rest next year.

Step 6.  Get our your felt and your glue gun and then forget to start work on the project until five days into advent.  Make a few more ornaments.  When your twelve year old daughter (who was six in step one) asks to help, hand the whole thing over to her.  After all, she enjoys messing around with felt and glue guns way more than you.  She'll have it done in a few hours.

Step 7.  Use duct tape to stick the felt banner which will hold the ornaments to the wall, because if you have to go out and buy a dowel to make a proper hanger, it will be another year.

Step 8.  Your Jesse Tree is done, and you still have a few years to enjoy it before your kids go to college!


Now to spend the next seven years knitting a sweater for my husband!

Note to Mom Bloggers:  I'm just kidding!  Any feelings of sadness and inadequacy I might experience are 100 percent my own issues, and not a result of your blogging.