All Things Hold Together

I am sorry that I did not get to post more kids Christmas crafts before Christmas. I have been so busy trying to keep three excited and wild boys busy this week. First, we had Big D’s 10th birthday on Sunday and then the pre-Christmas excitement. It has been a hectic week, to say the least.

I thought I would take a little time in between my Christmas baking to post some links and pictures.

Today, I am making peanut butter, peanut butter chip cookies for my sister’s boyfriend, brownies for my mother’s boyfriend, Oreo cookie bark for my mother’s boyfriend’s brother, and a chocolate cream pie (with homemade crust), pineapple upside-down cake, and rolls for our Christmas eve dinner at my mother’s house. That might sound like a lot, but I really enjoy baking.

This week, the kids and I made a lot of ornaments. Here are a few of my favorite.

This one comes from Martha Stewart. The instructions are here. There was a video, but I can’t find it right now.

It is made from strips of paper (or old Christmas cards) and brads (paper fasteners). I like it because you can make it as simple as construction paper and office brads,

or take it up a level with scrapbook paper and fancy fasteners, like these snowflakes that I found in the scrap booking section of the craft store.

We also made these ribbon candy ornaments, also found on Martha Stewart.

Here are the instructions. This one has a link to watch the video. This was easy enough for the 8- and 10-year-olds to do.

Here is one more ornament that the kids made. Simply take a styrofoam ball and wrap it with variegated Christmas-colored yarn. Embellishments, such as sequins and beads, can be added with straight pins. Tie a ribbon around and secure a bow at the top with a straight pin.

Have a merry Christmas!

This crafty mama is not feeling so well today, so you will have to wait for another Christmas crafts post. I just can’t get to it today.

To show my appreciation for you stopping by my little corner of the blogosphere, here are some links to some kid friendly ideas I found recently on the web.

Amazing Science Projects, from Kids (Martha Stewart).
Yarn Cards, from Kids.
Printable, customizable Veggie Tales and 3-2-1 Penguins gift tags, from Big Idea.
Veggie Tales Christmas printables, from Big Idea.
Design and print your own Jan Brett Christmas tree, from Jan Brett (This one does not work with Firefox).

We did not actually do any crafts today or yesterday (they painted instead), but I want to keep up with my craft-a-day posts, so I am going to cheat a little. Here are two fun looking crafts from Martha Stewart’s Kids website.

Craft 12: Tree place card

Craft 13: Yarn snowflake ornament

We will definitely be doing this one. They look really neat and fun to make.

I made a really cool snowflake out of a white pipe cleaner (chenille stem). I will post a picture and instructions (hopefully) tomorrow.

The snow is all melted, so we have been crafting our tails off the last couple of days!

For those of you just tuning in, our previous Kids Christmas Crafts are posted here, here, and here.

Craft 7:

This is a classic. We used to make these when I was in elementary school.

Cut strips from construction paper. I used a ruler lined up lengthwise with the edge of the paper to make the strips a uniform width. You need one strip for the center color and two strips of each of the other colors.

Leave two strips the full length. Cut one inch off the next color pair. Cut two inches off the center strip. Now you have 5 strips, in three lengths.

Place the strips in a pile in the following order: longest, middle-length, shortest, middle-length, longest. Line up on one end and staple. Now line up the other ends and staple. Hole punch and thread through a piece of yarn for hanging.

You can also make these with more than three colors and/or vary the amount that you cut off for different designs.

Craft 8:

This is a quick and easy craft.

Simply cut a circle out of green construction paper or cardstock. Cut it into a spiral. Decorate with glitter glue, markers, or other embellishments.

Punch a hole in the center to thread on yarn, or staple yarn on, for hanging.

If desired, glue a star on the top.

The green is supposed to make it look like a tree, but I think these are fun to make in all colors.

Craft 9:

A gingerbread house!

Making gingerbread houses with your kids has never been easier now that most stores carry kits with the pre-baked gingerbread pieces and all of the candy and frosting.

Crafts 10 and 11:

These two crafts both come from The Toymaker (Hat tip: Homeschool Hacks).

This is an awesome site.

The first craft is 3D stars the the kids colored and cut out. The folding is a little tricky, so you might have to do that part.

These look nice nestled in the branches of the Christmas tree. (Sorry, no picture of that.)

The next craft is a dodecahedron with cute snowmen printed on it. The folding and gluing for this make it a bit tricky for the kids, but they love playing with this little paper “ball” when it is finished.

For a more kid-involved craft, print out a blank dodecahedron for them to color.

The Toymaker is a wonderful site with lots of mama crafts, too, like this three-dimensional angel house made from folded printer paper. (Found here.)

Wow! I actually caught up, even with the snow days. I’ll be back later to post today’s craft.

December 5:

A free craft time resulted in a Santa made from a toilet paper tube and construction paper, courtesy of Big E.

Here are some directions from Family Fun for a similar craft.

December 6:

December 4:

We made tabletop trees out of construction paper using this project from Family Fun as a guide.

Using the Family Fun template (link opens PDF), we cut our trees out of green paper. We followed the method for the tree card, but we did not make them cards. Instead, we glued the tab to the inside of the other end of the tree to make it permanently stand open.

To get more than one color of circle “ornaments” on the tree, we punched more holes after the first color of paper was glued on. Then, we glued on another color of paper to the back of our tree (over the first color).

Big E even added a star to the top of his on one side. And Big D added a cross to the trunk with a decorative hole punch we have.

Here are ours.

From Left to right: Big D, mine, Big E, Little E (with my help cutting).

I am still on for the kids craft-a-day for December through Christmas, I am just late posting.

December 1:

As I said in my last post, we made this ornament from a kit we ordered from Oriental Trading Company. Here are ours:

You could easily make this craft using pop sticks to make the manger, raffia bits for the hay, and the people are made from wooden pieces, wrapped in cloth. Baby Jesus is a small piece of pop stick with a painted face, wrapped in white cloth. The star is a painted wooden piece.

December 2:

We made these little wreaths out of the plastic ring that is left when you take the top off a gallon milk or water jug. The instructions are here, on Family Fun Magazine’s website. (Link opens a video instructional.)

Green glittery pipe cleaners (chenille stems) are wrapped around the plastic ring and then embellishments are glued on.

December 3:

Okay, I cheated here a little. This is a craft Little E made at church this morning. It is a garland made from painted pasta and angels cut out of paper with two holes punched in them, strung onto a piece of string. A cute and simple craft great for all ages.

I hope you enjoy these craft ideas.

Tomorrow is the first day of December. I still plan to do a craft project a day, so I will start posting them tomorrow (after we have pictures, so probably in the evening).

Over at About Homeschooling, which is one of the best online homeschool resources, there is a Countdown to Christmas page with links to crafts, recipes, coloring pages, etc. for each day Dec. 1 - Dec. 24. Very cool!

While I’m talking about great resources, have you seen “Teach Art at Home“? It has a monthly newsletter with free art projects. This month’s newsletter includes this great winter scene painting. Click on “Newsletter” in the side menu to subscribe.

We put our tree up. There is a funny story that goes along with it. I’ll post later.

Have a wonderful day!