Preparing for Advent: Make An Heirloom Jesse Tree

After I wrote about how my family celebrates Advent using a Jesse Tree, Lisa linked to her beautiful hand made Jesse Trees, do-it-yourself Jesse Tree Kits and her awesome pattern for the same.  My girls love having their own paper Jesse Trees on their bedroom doors, but I loved the idea of having beautiful handmade Jesse Tree that can be displayed somewhere on the main level of the house. During Lent we have a felt Jesus Tree that is in a prominent location and the girls will go over to it and discuss the different bible stories that go with each of the symbols on the tree.  I imagine they might do the same with a Jesse Tree of this sort.

Lisa was gracious enough to send me a copy of her Jesse Tree pattern so I could make one for my girls and tell you about it.  The pattern is very straightforward and is very easy to follow if you have some basic cross stitching or sewing experience.  Over the course of an afternoon I sat down and cut out all of the patterns and the felt for the ornaments.  This beautiful Jesse Tree is certainly a project.  Personally I find cutting out the pieces for the pattern to be the easy part, but sewing it all together is where you need to find a bit of time to get the job done.  This isn't a project that you want to start a day or two before Advent.  If you have a toddler in the house, like me, you'll want to give yourself a bit of time to make this.  I find craft projects like this are best done when little ones aren't around to "help".

I had hoped to have most if not all of this Jesse Tree finished so I could show you how well it turned out for me, but after being sick and then having to tend to sick children I'm afraid I haven't gotten much further than cutting out the ornaments.  Comparing this pattern to the Jesus Tree I made two years ago I'd say they're very similar but I like how complete the directions are with Lisa's pattern.  I also like that these ornaments are stitched together.  I learned the hard way that gluing felt doesn't work well when I made our Jesus Tree and that meant I wound up having to make several of the ornaments twice.

Lisa's pattern comes with the readings for the Jesse Tree.  After paging through our Catholic Picture Bible,I'm pretty sure you can match up most, if not all of the readings with this bible.  I also compared it to the Holy Heroes Jesse Tree.  For the most part, the symbols and reading from the Holy Heroes version match up with this one.  To keep my girls happy, I'll be making a few additional felt ornaments to coordinate with the Holy Heroes Jesse Tree.

If you think you'd like to make a beautiful Advent heirloom for your family check out Lisa's Etsy shop Navy Mango.  If you're not the crafty type and you love the look of this great Jesse Tree, you can purchase a ready made one from her.