Kid Made Swedish Star Ornaments

This wooden star is reminiscent of...

source

Scandinavian straw ornaments, but instead of straw it’s made of toothpicks. 

toothpicks
glue-I used a glue gun, although tacky glue may be easier
scissors
colored thread, string or embroidery floss

Make a guide on a piece of paper by marking out a tic-tac-toe like grid in which both sets of parallel lines are one inch apart. Now, place two toothpicks on top of the grid on two of the parallel lines. Take two more toothpick and glue them onto the first set, using the grid as your guide as where to place them. The tricky part, especially for children is keeping everything as straight as possible. 

Clean away any as much of the extra glue as you can. Wrap with some string around where you glued the joints together, cutting any excess string off at the back and glue down the ends. Glue one toothpick square on top of the other as in the picture above. Make a loop out of another piece of string to create a hanger.

source: Just Crafty Enough

Two More Homemade Christmas Balls

Yarn Ornaments

These are a bit tricky to make, and so are for the older kids in the house. They are nice, however, because they are made from Styrofoam balls and so are unbreakable, so are great if you still have very young ones who like to take things off the tree.

I used these handy ornament hangers which just get pressed into the Styrofoam balls, but you could use a regular ornament hook and bend it to make a loop, pressing the ends into the ball.

Cover the top half of the ball with glue, making sure to glue around the hook. We used glitter glue, which didn't stick quite as well as regular glue, but left bits of sparkly glitter where there were any gaps in the yarn, which was quite nice.

Wrap the yarn around the ball in a circular pattern, beginning at the hook. Continue until you reach the half-way point where the glue stops. Next, flip it upside down and holding the hook, and cover the rest of the ball with glue, and continue wrapping. When you get near the end, cut your yarn leaving a little tail, and then poke the tail straight down into the glue so that end of yarn is secure.

source: My Sparkle

Mosaic-Collage Ornament

James came up with this idea. He just torn small pieces from leftover Christmas catalogs and glued them to a Styrofoam ball. Simple and sweet.

Cinnamon Dough Ornaments; for younger and older

Today we made Cinnamon Dough Ornaments.

I have always loved the look and fragrance of Cinnamon Christmas Ornaments, and I thought this week, while we are studying the spice cinnamon, was the perfect time to try it out.

There are several recipes out there for them, but they all are pretty much the same, with minor adjustments to proportions. We used this recipe:
1 cup applesauce
1-1 1/2 cups cinnamon
1/4 cup white Elmer's glue
Mix together, starting with 1 cup of cinnamon, adding a little more at a time until it gets to a kneading consistency. Knead until thoroughly mixed.
Roll out to 1/4 inch thick and cut with cookie cutters. Put a hole in the top for hanging with a toothpick or the end of a paintbrush. Let air dry for 2-4 days, turning over once or twice a day to evenly dry through. Ornaments will shrink a bit as they dry.
The extra bonus for this dough is that it is gluten-free, so my oldest two could handle it.

Using that much cinnamon for enough dough for all the family seemed a bit expensive, so I chose to use a Cinnamon Salt Dough for the younger boys. I used this recipe from Little Wonder's Days:
2 cups flour
 1 cup salt
 1 cup water
 5 tablespoons of cinnamon
 Knead until smooth and then refrigerate for about 30 minutes before using. Just as the other dough, you roll it out and cut it into shapes just like regular cookie dough. Once you have your ornaments made, place them on a parchment lined baking sheet and bake them in a preheated oven at 325 degrees for about 45-60 minutes.

The house smelled wonderful while they were making them...

and even more so when they were baking.
When they come out of the oven they look like this...less brown, more white.

They smelled so good, I just might have to make another batch of cinnamon cookies to eat!
Once the ornaments were baked, the boys set to work painting them.

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Make a Matching Game

I have found that when there are just a few more days before Christmas, it is always nice to have a game to occupy them.

This is a very simple game to make.
You need some Hershey's Kisses and either
white circle stickers and small stamps or
colored circle stickers or
small stickers, but make sure you have two of each.

Put your stickers on the bottom of the Kisses...

in pairs.

Now you have a matching game, which can be played with one player...

or two.
Just take turns picking up two of the Kisses and seeing if they match.
If they do, you get to keep them. How many matches can you make?
When you get tired of playing with them, you can eat them!

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Thanksgiving Week Activity: Make Placecards (and practice handwriting too!)

The idea for these cute turkey placecards came from Frugal Family Fun Blog. Valerie made them by cutting some flower-shaped sticky notes in half to form the tail feathers of the turkey. I didn't have any of those, but I did have some scrapbooking paper which I cut into a similar shape.

We used a half-circle of brown construction paper and some yellow sticky-backed circles. He drew on the snoods and glued on some googly eyes.



He had an interesting place to put his sticky circles to keep track of them.

We will go back and paint the snoods red once the glue has dried. In no time he had made a whole rafter of turkeys.

(He didn't even realize that he was practicing handwriting.)

Dipping Candles

We wanted to experience an old fashioned craft this Thanksgiving; something to evoke the image of the struggling Pilgrims and yet be warm and homey at the same time. We decided on hand-dipped candles, which I first saw at Dresses and Messes. You can make them too. They are simple enough for your youngest and interesting enough for your oldest. This could also be a wonderful Christmas or Hanukkah activity.

First put your wax in a clean empty can. Fill it with candle wax. beeswax or broken crayons. Put the can into a pan filled about 1/2-way with water. Heat it slowly, until the wax melts. While the wax is melting, fill another can or Mason jar with cold water.Tie candle wicking or string on a wooden spoon. Dip string into the melted wax.

Alternate between the can of wax and the jar of cold water. The cold water harden and seals the wax so that you are just not melting the wax off your candle with each dip instead of building up your candle.

We had a rhythm going, since we had two children sharing each set, of 10 seconds and then switch.

Continue until it’s as thick as you like. Allow to cool completely.

How To Make Snowflakes

How to Make Paper Snowflakes

My artist friend, Howard, (who is an elementary school art teacher) showed us just the other night a great way to make beautiful snowflakes, and so now I am going to pass this on to you.

 If your paper isn't already square, fold your paper into a triangle, which will leave a strip along the side.

 Cut that strip off. If your paper is already square, also fold it into a triangle, but you will skip this step then.

 Fold that in half to make another triangle.

 Now fold this into thirds...

 which will leave some "fox ears" showing at the top.

 Cut off the "fox ears" by cutting straight across.

 Now, here is the creative step. Remember anything you cut out of the point will be in the center of your snowflake. Also, a good rule for young ones to remember is if they cut in on one side, be sure to come back out that same side. It prevents accidently cutting your snowflake so that it falls apart.

 Once you are satisfied with your cut-outs, carefully unfold your snowflake.

Each one is unique.

Please feel free to leave in the comments if you know of any other ways to show support to those suffering in   the town of Newton.

Sources and Inspiration:

• Coffee Filter Snowflakes for Newton at I Heart Naptime

Swirly Christmas Balls Craft {for all ages}

This Christmas craft is easy enough for the younger kids and yet interesting enough for the older kids to want to do. A great family project.

You will need:

Clear glass Christmas ball ornaments

the desired colors of paint, acrylic or tempra

tape

Remove the top from the ball and squirt in a medium squirt (about 1-1/2 tsp.) of two colors of  paint. Put a piece of tape over the open to keep from splattering. Shake, roll on a paper plate or otherwise get the paint to move inside the ball. Once the paint is mixed as you like it, tap them upside down on the paper plate or newspaper you have on the table to tap out any excess paint. Leave the ball upside down, without it's top,  in  container it came in, or an old egg carton, to dry. Once dry, replace the top and hang. 

You can let your kids get creative with the color mixing, or if you have a color theme for your Christmas tree, you can  make balls to match it.

source: photo tutorial at Hope Studios