this year's ornaments

Christmas crafting!  We tried three different things this year, with varying results.

I wanted to make these snowglobes.  I found pictures of the boys in the snow and laminated them.  I was so excited to put these together but they were duds.  My problem was that I did not leave enough space around the inner edge of the lid, and the jars would not close.   On one of the three, I could get the lid on, but it wouldn't seal, and so it leaked.  I think I used the wrong kind of glue, for starters, and I may have been trying to cram too much stuff into each snowglobe.  I was focused mainly on the look and how cute they would be with sprigs of this and that.... I should have been primarily concerned with whether the darn things would close.  So, these potentially adorable snowglobes were a bust for us.  Maybe we will try again next year.

Incidentally, one of the other moms in S's class wanted to to do snowglobes as the craft for the whole class during the winter party.  So I was able to experience all the same technical difficulties, times twenty.  I felt so bad as each kid walked away from the sink, which was my station, with either a leaky snowglobe or with one that wouldn't close at all.  That was quite an afternoon.


These next ornaments we tried were these little wintery scenes.  I think these turned out okay, even though some of our trees and deer dried at a crooked angle.  The tricky part of these was not getting glue all over the stuffing that we used for the snow.  And also keeping the stuffing inside the cup as you put it over the top of the scene.  So these took a bit of dexterity and patience.  Because of that they weren't very kid-friendly.  I had to do most of the work myself, which isn't the idea.  But they made cute gifts for teachers and grandparents.  I love the one we kept for our tree.

Lastly, we made these sparkly snowflakes.  These were super easy for the boys, but it took a surprisingly long time to do 5 beads per pipecleaner.  Turning on some tv as a distraction helped us get through it.  We made most according to the directions, but I also tried one version where I kept the pipecleaners longer and then I curled them to make a more flowery look.

Next year I'm going to try to limit myself to one or two ornaments, and I'll try to pick ones that will be a little easier for the boys.  The whole point is to do these WITH them, not for me to slave away after they've gone to bed.  

One more thing I did this year.  I used our box advent calendar again, but this year I put magnets on the backs of the boxes.  In the past I had hung them on a door or wall using poster putty.  But it never worked very well.  We would often have boxes falling down  and their contents spilling out.  The magnets worked much better.  I put them all on a cookie sheet from IKEA.  Voila.  No more falling boxes.

Just for fun, a few pictures of our decorations this year.  I love the mantle in our apartment. 

new traditions --- pumpkin party with friends

One of the hardest parts about moving is that we can't continue all our holiday traditions in the same ways.  Since we aren't as close to family, some of the things we used to do with them will now be done on our own.  Sad but true.  It used to be that the boys would pick out pumpkins at a local farm, and then Grandma Debbie would carve pumpkins "with" them.  I put the quotations on "with" because she would really carve the pumpkins for them.  She would let them pick out any template from the book and then proceed to carve it expertly no matter how difficult the design.  That was our tradition and the boys loved it. I did too, honestly, because I didn't have to do much!

So this year I knew we would be carving pumpkins by ourselves.  I felt overwhelmed by the thought of finding time to do it.... I was afraid I would drop the ball or put it off until it was too late.  I decided to set it up as a social event so that I couldn't back out or somehow not manage to find the time.  I think it was a good strategy.  Throwing a pumpkin carving party is easy.  Just ask people to bring their own pumpkins, provide a little food, get your table ready to hold pounds of slimy goop, and you're golden.

We didn't go to a farm for our pumpkins.  We went to the Dominics parking lot.  And that was okay.  Also the boys didn't get to pick fancy templates for someone to carve for them.  I told them they had to draw their own faces and keep them simple.  Okay, truth be told, they didn't exactly stick to those stipulations.  Nate found instructions for a Poke ball that he put on S's pumpkin.  And before I realized what was happening, T had drawn 4 small, detailed faces on his pumpkin, one on each side.  Ideally he would have drawn a big, simple face on one side of his pumpkin.  But, hey.  Nate was willing to carve them all out, so it was okay.

We didn't have a huge turnout for our pumpkin party.  But what a great way to spend an afternoon with friends.  We had fun chatting, catching up, getting messy, and eating soup.  I regret that I didn't take a picture of our guests' pumpkins.  I'll try to remember next year.  I think we found a new tradition.

p.s. S is conspicuously absent in these photos because he was my photographer for much of the day.  Nate was carving his pumpkin for him, and Si's boredom was manifesting itself in obnoxious behaviors.  But I let him have the good camera to take pictures and he magically transformed into a happy helper.  He took most of the pictures for his post and I think he did a great job.  

this year's valentine crafts!

We finished our Valentine's projects a week early this year, amazingly.  This is T's collection box to take to school.  It was mainly inspired by this project that I saw on The Crafty Crow.  We used a tissue box.  Instead of covering it with yarn, which I thought looked too time consuming, I opted to cover it with hundreds of paper circles.  Much more efficient!  Honestly, though, it didn't take that long.  I was kind of rolling my eyes at myself when I started, like, really?  This is how you want to spend your whole Sunday, Laura?  But it was kind of relaxing, mindlessly gluing them all on.  I didn't do any kind of pattern or neat rows, just kept it totally random, so that it would look like my kindergartener had possibly helped me with it.  He didn't.  He started out helping, and was doing a great job, but we soon figured out that a glue stick wasn't going to make the circles stick.  So I switched to the hot glue gun and T couldn't help anymore.   He did cheer me on.  I was surprised to look up after an hour of hot gluing and realize all four sides were well covered.  Not bad!  The rock eyes were painted by me, as directed by T.  I used pipecleaners to make the arms/hands and hot glued them on to the sides.  More blue dots to cover the ends of the pipe cleaners and waa-laa.  Finito.  We're crazy about this guy.

 

 

And here are the boys' Valentine's to pass out.  Saw this idea on Pinterest; the link went back to this blog.  I don't think ours turned out quite as well as the inspiration.  I should have cropped them so that the hands were bigger.  Also, the boys were not very cooperative about striking the arm-outstretched-fist-clenched pose.  It is so hard to take good pictures of them.  I totally missed the day of parenting school that covered how to make your kids cooperate for photos.  Mine are generally terrors in this situation.  Getting them to keep their eyes open (not because they're accidentally blinking, but because they are rolling their eyes to the back of their heads.  On purpose) and keep their tongues in their mouths is a serious feat.  Asking them to stretch out a fist like they're holding a sucker?  That is a bridge too far.  So these were the best we got.  T for some reason doing two fists, and S with his fist right under his face instead of off to the side.  Neither one of them stretched out very far.  I spent too much time angling each sucker so that it wasn't in front of their faces.  Then I put a piece of tape on the back of each one to secure the sucker, but I have a feeling that by the time these get to school, the suckers will be all over the place.  Oh well.  The important thing is that they're done, the boys like them, and hey, everyone will get a sucker. 

Valentinetastic.

We don't do homemade valentines every year. It doesn't always come together. This year, for some reason, I was on top of it and got them done early. We found both of these ideas on The Crafty Crow, which is definitely my go-to site for adorable kids' crafts. Love it over there.

For T's Valentines we decided to do these monsters, originally posted at Chef Messy. It took us a couple afternoons, while S was at school. He did a great job tearing shapes, drawing faces, and placing hearts. I think these are so stinking cute!

For his classmates we did a generic, "Happy Valentines Day!" For family members we did a more personal message.

Of course, in a kid's world, no valentine is complete without candy. So we added chocolate hearts on top of the paper hearts, using glue dots. Done.

For S, we used an idea that was originally posted on Design Mom. Mad Lib Valentines!

The original idea didn't include any candy, but we wanted to give a little something, so we bought stick candy at Cracker Barrel and wrapped the Mad Libs around those. So every kid gets one stick of candy, one Mad Lib sheet to fill out, and we wrapped those in decorative paper and embroidery floss.

The blog post at Design Mom included a pdf of tags to cut out and tie to the scroll. S wrote his "to" and "from"'s on the back of the tags.

Here they are all together. I think they look super.

Valentines with boys can be a challenge. They don't want anything to do with the typical Valentine motifs of hearts, flowers, or lacy doilies. So I was happy to find these boy-friendly ideas, and happy to help the boys make these Valentines they'll be proud to hand out to their friends.

I made toys.

Okay, here it is, the final post covering all the stuff I made to give away for Christmas.  I have never made so much for Christmas before in my life.  I typically spread my crafting efforts out over the whole year pretty evenly.  I'm not sure what prompted this big effort.  For one thing, I just kept finding ideas I liked, especially in Family Fun magazine.   It was an impulse buy at the grocery store, but I'd say I got my money's worth.  Lots of cute projects in there.  I might need to subscribe.

I made this little set of bowling girls for my nieces to share.  Very simple, just embellished the wooden pieces, which can be purchased at any craft store.  I ended up using a different ball with the set, because this marble wasn't heavy enough to knock the ladies over.  Some of these gals are happy to be part of this bowling set, a few are nervous, and a couple are making defiant faces.  They plan to kick the ball back.

Bowling girls!

Packaged them up in a ziplock bag with a label on top.  When S saw this, I swear he said, "Congratulations on this packaging, mom!  It looks great!" The child is easily impressed by my creations and I love him for it.

Next up: Not sure what to call these.  Magnetic habitat toys?   Yet another idea from Family Fun.  I already had the acrylic box picture frames, collecting dust in the basement, so this was a perfect way to put them to use.  I made a reptile habitat for my boys, and an ocean box for my nieces to share.  I modified the original idea by attaching two magnets to the bottom instead of one, so two kids could play together.  Also instead of using real sand as per their suggestion (hello, mess!), I cut out pictures from National Geographic and glued them to the bottom side of the box with decoupage glue.  I made a little video to show you how they work, too.  Anything for you guys.

Boys' reptile habitat. 

Here you can see the spools that prop up the box, and the little spool with the magnet attached that moves on the underside of the box.

My nieces' ocean box.

Another gift for my nieces: Clothespin doll kits.  This project consisted of me gathering supplies for clothespin dolls, and packaging them in an appealing way.  The girls really liked these, especially my oldest niece.  She said it was her favorite gift!  I tried hard not to make everyone else feel bad about their lame gifts.  (Just kidding.  But I was very flattered).

A box for each girl.

Personalized labels.

What's inside?

All the supplies: clothespins, glue, pen, sample doll, fabric scraps, ribbons and notions, embroidery floss for hair.

Sample dolls.

Finally, for the kids on my side of the family I made these jumping jack paper dolls.  The kids and adults all had a good laugh when they were opened.  When our nephew on Nate's side gets a little older I will definitely make one for him too.  They are charming.  Before assembling the parts, I covered them all in a couple coats of decoupage glue, hoping to make them a little more durable.

The whole crew.

Pull the string to make them jump.

 I also made a video describing these.  I had to balance the camera on my shoulder in order to tape one in action.  Precarious!

If you made it through all these very long Christmas crafting posts, I thank you.  Hope you all had a great holiday and maybe I'll see a few of you on New Year's Eve!