magpie & cake tutorial: 3D joke tree advent calendar

I made this advent calendar last year for my amazing advent-adoring friend Annie. Sadly, I didn't get co-ordinated enough to make an advent calendar this year (sorry, Annie!), but I thought I'd share a quick tutorial with everyone on how to make what I hereby dub ... the 3D Joke Tree Advent Calendar!



The basic idea is that instead of chocolate or a picture, you get a new Christmas or holiday joke every day. You could also adapt this idea to include holiday or winter trivia instead, if that's your thing.

To make the 3D Joke Tree Advent Calendar, you will need:

• Construction paper (or other coloured paper)
  
• Buttons
  
• Glue
  
• Tape
  
• Pen
  
• Scissors and/or exacto knife

1. Grab some festively coloured paper and cut it into strips about 1/2" wide and 4" or 5" long.



2. Place a 2 or 3 layers of masking tape (I used blue painter's tape) on top of one another to create a thick layer tape. Cover the end of the paper strips with the tape and trim off excess tape. (The point of this steps is to create a "stopper" for the joke-strip so it doesn't pull right out of the tree.)



3. On each strip of paper, write out a joke on one side, and the punchline on the other side. I found most of my jokes online at sites like this one, but you can also make up your own. I think cheesy jokes are always the best. Here are a few to get you started:

• Why are Christmas trees like bad knitters?
  They both drop their needles!
  
  
• What do you get when you cross a snowman with a vampire?
  Frostbite!
  
  
• What do snowmen eat for breakfast?
  Ice Krispies!
  
  
• Where do polar bears vote?
  At the North Poll!

4. Take a sheet of green paper and cut little slits in it at different angles. This is where he joke-strips will slide through, so the slits should be slightly larger than the strips of paper, say 3/4".

5. Curl the green paper into a cone. Glue or tape it in place, then trim round the bottom so your tree can sit flat on the table without tipping over.

6. Slip the joke-strips through the slits from the inside out, so the masking tape ends stay inside the tree. You should end up with that looks like it has multi-coloured dreadlocks sprouting out all over it, like this:



7. At end of each joke-strips write a number from 1 to 24 on one side. On the other side, glue on a button. I used a glue gun, but regular white glue should work if you're patient. Glue a yellow button or yellow paper star on the top of the tree. When the glue is dry, push all the strips back into the tree, so just the buttons are showing, ready to be pulled out day by day.

And that's it! You're ready to advent.