Tag: Christmas

Reindeer Bell Necklace

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This adorable necklace is just right for rockin’ out to your famiiy’s favorite holiday tunes. May I suggest ‘Jingle Bell Rock’ and ‘Run, Run Rudolph’, in particular?

Ideally, I would have used larger jingle bells as the body of the reindeer, but the craft store was clean out of just about every Christmas supply! We found sparkly, medium-sized silver bells instead, which were intriguing to Travis, if not perfect for the craft.

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To make the antlers, cut a pipe cleaner in half and thread one half through the bell. Twist to secure.

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Cut the other half in two again (so now you have quarters) and wrap a quarter around each branch of the other pipe cleaner, to form antlers. Travis needed a bit of help with this step.

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We glued two eyes and a red pom pom nose onto each bell, and set them aside to dry.

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Once the glue dried, it was time to shake our jingle bells! I tied a string to each reindeer to form a necklace, and we could rock out.

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Jingle bells, Jingle bells!

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Handprint Wrapping Paper

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Parents and grandparents will love any gift that your child gives them – but make it extra special with this fun hand- and footprint paper. The paper itself may very well charm them more than the gift inside!

First, I set up everything for footprints, the messiest part of the project. I recommend using tempera paint, and having a pack of baby wipes right next to you to wash off messy feet.

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Note: you can use acrylic paint, but it will simply require a more thorough scrubbing with soap and water.

Travis sat in a chair in front of a large sheet of butcher paper (alternatively, you can cut open brown bags from the supermarket so they lie flat), and giggled as I brushed paint onto his feet.

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I held his hand as he walked across the paper, leaving tracks behind. He loved peeking back over his shoulder at his trail!

A quick wipe, and then we were on to the hand prints. Travis was giggling again for a nice coat of Christmas red.

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He loved pressing his hands down, making sure each print had all 5 fingers.

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We left the paper to dry, then used it to wrap a package for daddy.

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If multiple children are decorating the same sheet of wrapping paper, you can add names and the date next to their prints.

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A Christmas surprise for under the tree!

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Classic Thumbprints

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This classic Christmas cookie is the perfect recipe to make with little kids: an easy dough that comes together with few ingredients, plus the magic of shaping the cookies with the best instrument of all – your child’s thumb!

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Note: to make Ener-G egg yolks, use 1 tablespoon powder in 2 tablespoons water. For other vegan egg substitutes, aim for a similar volume.

Ingredients:

  • 2/3 cup Earth Balance butter, softened
  • 1/2 cup sugar
  • 2 Ener-G egg yolks
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
  • 1 and 1/2 cups flour
  1. Beat the butter in a stand mixer until creamed. Add the sugar and beat until combined.
  2. Add the Ener-G and vanilla; beat until combined.
  3. Gradually beat in the flour. Shape the dough into a ball and wrap in plastic wrap. Chill for 1 hour.
  4. To bake the cookies, roll into 1-inch balls and place on cookie sheets. Press your thumb into the middle of each cookie.
  5. Bake at 375 degrees F for 11 minutes. If the thumbprint starts to puff up during baking, press back down with the back of a teaspoon.
  6. Let cool on wire racks before filling as desired. For

For a uber-classic version, use strawberry jam. We updated ours with a carrot cake jam filling!

 

Cinnamon Ornaments

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Did you know you could make dough just from cinnamon and applesauce? Nor I, but here’s the perfect dough to craft holiday ornaments, thanks to Travis’s Ranger Rick Jr.. Once the cinnamon is in the oven, your whole house will smell like Christmas!

Travis loved concocting the dough. Simply dump in 1 (2-ounce) jar of cinnamon into a bowl. Careful to pour slowly so you don’t get cinnamon in your face!

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Add 4 ounces applesauce, stirring until very well combined.

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Turn the dough out onto a cutting board and use a rolling pin to flatten to about 1/4-inch thick.

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Travis was so excited we got to use our holiday-shaped cookie cutters for the first time since last Christmas.

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He loved selecting which shape to use each time we rolled the dough.

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Carefully transfer to a baking sheet.

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Use a toothpick to poke a hole in each ornament, then bake at 200 degrees F for 20 minutes.

The instructions says to thread pretty ribbon through the holes, but the toothpick holes were much too small for this. Next time I would punch out holes with a straw. Thinking quickly, we threaded the ornaments onto pipe cleaners, instead.

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Thread several onto one pipe cleaner (or ribbon) for a pretty garland, or make singles to hang as ornaments. Either way, these would also be wonderful to give away as gifts!

Pouch Present

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We’ve loved the edible gift suggestions from High Five magazine in the past – perfect for teachers this time of year! The craft in Travis’s latest December issue was a bit different – the wrapping for the gift, instead of the gift itself. Put the pouch together now, and fill it with a little token of appreciation for teachers this holiday season.

There is a bit of adult prep-work for this one. Cut a circle from a 9×12-inch piece of felt. Green felt seasonably appropriate.

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Punch about 12 holes around the edges of the felt. This is definitly a grown-up step, since felt is much tougher to hole punch than paper.

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Finally, cut a piece of yarn that is 36 inches long, and tie to a paper clip; this will be your child’s “needle.”

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Now it’s the kid’s turn! Encourage him or her to decorate the bottom of the felt with markers. Travis made scribbles, but your kids might prefer to draw something seasonable, like Christmas trees or ornaments.

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Travis was so proud lacing all the way around the felt pieces with his needle and thread. He insisted he could do it all by himself, including knowing when to sew up and when to sew down.

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Once you’ve gone all the way around, leave the two ends of yarn dangling. Pull the felt slightly, and it will cinch closed.

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What will you gift your child’s teachers this year? Do share in the comments!

Little Tree Crate

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We loved our Swirly Ornaments holiday crate from Kiwi Co., and the kit for Little Tree turned out to be just as wonderful. The project set the stage for a festive mood inside our apartment on a drizzly December morning. Read on!

To start making the tree, we first needed to do some math, dividing the kit’s green pipe cleaners into two equal piles. This was a neat way to introduce Travis to counting out two sets of something, just as you would for dealing out cards in a game, for example.

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Cut the pipe cleaners from one pile in half, and leave the others long.

Insert the provided wooden stick into the round wooden stand.

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Starting with the long pipe cleaners, wrap around the stand.

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Repeat with the short pipe cleaners. Travis loved the wrapping, and insisted on doing so himself for each one.

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Adult step: snip the pipe cleaners at an angle, so your tree is a triangle shape. Travis was really psyched to see our fake tree in the same tapered shape as our real tree.

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Peel the backing off a provided star sticker, and attach at the top of the tree.

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Next up, thread on the provided beads and bells as ornaments. “Which are ornaments and which are lights?” Travis wanted to know.

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Good question, but either way, all beautiful!

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To make the base, use any round bowl to trace a circle onto the provided red felt.

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Cut out and decorate with the provided gold glitter glue.

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Travis was equally delighted by the “presents” that can go under the tree – two wooden cubes, onto which we glittered-glued pom poms.

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You can set your tree out as a pretty decoration, and we also plan to leave it alongside cookies and non-dairy milk for Santa on Christmas Eve! It’s also the perfect size to be a play tree for your child’s stuffed animals.

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To round out our festive morning, we made hot cocoa and added in a cute Snowman-themed spelling lesson from Education.com.

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This fun picture word match was a great way to cuddle up inside during the cold winter months and practice Travis’s spelling skills. For more spelling activities and printables like this check out Education.com!

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In sum, we had all the makings of a cozy winter morning.

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Swirly Ornaments Crate

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Kiwi Company occasionally puts out special holiday-themed crates, and we’ve been holding on to this one since last December! Reading the title on the box, I imagined the final product would be ornaments with beautiful swirls. Little did we know the method to make the ornaments was swirly, too!

Travis was so excited seeing the three plastic globe ornaments, since we had just set up our tree. Add two of the provided watercolors (in primary colors) to each globe for a quick lesson in color mixing. You’ll be able to make one orange, one green, and one purple ornament. Next squirt in a drop of the glittery silver paint.

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Add a marble, and get swirling! As you swirl, the marble will help the paint coat the entire globe.

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As a parental aside, this was very precarious proposition with a four-year-old. Of all the Koala projects we’ve ever done, this was by far the messiest! It was quite hard for Travis to swirl enough to coat the inside of the ornament without also spilling paint, so step in if you need to.

He loved the drying method that came next though; upend the ornament over a provided paper cup. The marble and any excess paint will fall out.

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We set ours aside to dry for about an hour.

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Ideally, flip the ornaments at this point and allow to dry on the inside, too, overnight. Travis was too impatient though and wanted to pop in the provided corks and seal them up!

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To finish each ornament, we wrapped a sparkly pipe cleaner around the neck.

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Add a silver ribbon (a great chance to practice tying a bow), then thread a provided bell onto the pipe cleaner. Hook the end.

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Now it’s ready to hang on your tree!

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The kit also suggested gifting the ornaments (just slip on a gift tag and it’s ready to go)…

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…or attaching one to your stocking as a sparkly decoration.

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Let the holiday season begin!

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Fun with Plastic Dinosaurs

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Over the years we seem to have accumulated a good-sized collection of tiny plastic dinosaur figurines. You can find these sold in tubes at toy stores, craft stores, and museum stores, and we’ve amassed quite a few duplicates as time has gone by. So it was time to have fun with a few of the extras!

First, Travis decided to cover them in sparkly glitter paint.

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This immediately made me think of sparkly Christmas ornaments, so we finished off the look with a little chenille stem collar for each one.

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If you loop thread or an ornament hook through each dinosaur’s collar, you can really hang them up on your tree next holiday season! We’re setting ours aside for Christmas.

Next up was dinosaur “egg” soap. If you truly want yours to look like eggs, you’ll need oval soap molds (available at craft stores). I only had square craft molds but hey, maybe there was a dinosaur somewhere who laid square eggs instead of oval ones.

Place a plastic dino in each empty mold.

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Meanwhile, melt a bar of glycerin soap in the microwave – you’ll need to heat it at 30 second to 1 minute intervals until completely melted, stirring after each interval.

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A word of caution: we first tried a bar of bath soap from the store, but it only puffed up in the microwave instead of melting. Although this led to endless amusement for Travis, it did not make great dino eggs! Turns out you really need to buy what’s called “melt and pour” soap or it simply won’t work.

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Once we had the right soap, it melted in a mere minute! Travis loved pressing the microwave buttons. Let your child carefully stir to remove any final lumps, then (adult step!) pour over the dinosaurs.

Here they are trapped in goo. Travis was gleeful!

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I was impressed with how quickly the soap sets, in under an hour, meaning kids won’t have to wait long for soapy fun. Bring your dinos into the tub, wrap them in cellophane for gifts, or place out as decoration.

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If you get soapy with your “eggs” in the tub, it won’t be long before your dinos hatch!

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Coffee Candles

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This is a beautiful and simple project, and to be honest was more of a craft for the grown-up in the room than for Travis! But he loved the materials involved, which were completely novel to him. Whether your little helper actually pitches in with the craft or just plays with the materials, it’s a cozy winter afternoon activity to do together.

The goal was to decorate the bottom of pillar candles with whole coffee beans – a toasty smelling and lovely touch that will add beauty to your holiday decorations or would make a great gift if wrapped up in cellophane with a big bow.

First, Travis needed to investigate the coffee beans. He loved the way that they felt and smelled – it didn’t hurt that we used an intense dark roast!

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The next cool object was the candles, since I don’t usually have these around the house. He loved the smooth wax, and was very curious how the wick and flame work (adult supervision required around candles at all times, of course!)

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To decorate a candle, you’ll need tacky glue (not white school glue) so that the coffee beans will hold in place as your little assistant helps glue them on. We decided we liked the beans best with the dimpled side facing outward.

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As mentioned though, Travis’s interest quickly turned simply to playing with the coffee beans. He was soon delightedly busy with a coffee bean kitchen…

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….while mama glued on the beans. Since it was just me, I actually switched to using a hot glue gun, which held the beans in place even better than tacky glue.

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Once the beans are set, place your holiday candles where friends and family can enjoy their sight and aroma too!

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Hand-Shaped Dish

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I’m a sucker for any craft that incorporates the size of a child’s hand. Last year, we made  a wreath featuring Travis’s handprints. This year we switched our art medium to clay. This little dish is perfect for holding holiday candies, and would also make a great gift for grandparents on your Christmas list!

To start, we gathered our materials: air-dry clay and balloons. Balloons and clay first thing in the morning? Travis was in heaven!

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Blow up one balloon to a size your child can comfortably hold in his or her hand; set aside.

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Trace your child’s hand onto a piece of paper and cut out; set aside.

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Now flatten your clay using a rolling pin until it is large enough to hold the handprint.

Use a clay slicing tool or plastic knife to cut around the handprint.

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Now here’s the slightly funny part: drape the hand over the balloon, and let sit somewhere kids can’t touch it or mess with it until dry.

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Once dry, remove the balloon and set your hand on the counter as a decorative dish.

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Don’t forget to inscribe with kids’ names and the year, so you’ll always remember!

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