Wrapping Presents

Here's a sweet idea for grandparents, aunts, uncles, and other relatives. Take a piece of finger paint paper and have your child paint the paper. Let it dry and use it as wrapping paper for the presents. Trust me, everyone will go crazy over it.

Door snowman

Easy and fun holiday decorations are always a winner in my book. I found a picture on Pinterest of a snowman on a door and loved the idea. I actually made one for the outside first and since Monkey was so in love with the snowman, we made another for the inside of the door so we didn't have to keep opening the door and saying hi everyday.

Necessary Items
 Sheets of fleece or felt - black, orange, and whatever color for the scarf.
 Tape - I used double sided
 Scissors

Step One
  Trace circles on black for eyes, mouth and buttons. Of course, make the eyes bigger than the buttons, We needed three sheets of black for all the buttons, eyes and mouth pieces. Cut out pieces.

Step Two
  Fold the scarf color in half and cut. Do the same for the other sheet. We used two sheets of our scarf color. On one half that you cut, cut fringe at one end.

Step Three
  Take the orange sheet and at whatever angle or size you choose, cut the nose out.

Step Four
  Take pieces and place them on the door. Start with the eyes and get them placed where you like.

Step Five
  Place the nose, mouth and buttons.

Step Six
  Place the scarf.

You can also put a hat with the snowman, but I didn't want to block up our window too much. Happy decorating everyone!!

Here's the original link.

Mini Christmas Trees

Getting in tune with the Christmas spirit is so much fun! We made mini Christmas tree's from pine cones that I got off the WU Campus. I originally wanted to make bird feeders from them as I have done in the past but I didn't have any bird seed, so I found another post that suggested a different idea. These turned out a hundred time cuter that I imagined, so here it is.

Necessary Items
 pine cones
 glue
 pom-poms

Step One
  Dab glue on pom-pom

Step Two
  Place pom-pom on pine cone

Step Three
  Repeat. A lot.

Here's the original link.

Happy crafting!

Candy Canes Ornaments

Red and white are those iconic colors of Christmas for candy canes. I found a pin that showed a craft that I thought would be a cute present for relatives and it could be something that Monkey can do all by herself, for the most part.

SO we are going to make candy cane ornaments.

Necessary Items
 Green Pipe Cleaners (I really do have a love for pipe cleaners)
 Red and White plastic beads
 Glue
 Scissors

Step 1
  Cut one green pipe cleaner in half to create the base for two candy canes.

Step 2
  Bend over a small portion of the pipe cleaner to keep the beads from falling off.

Step 3
  Start sliding on the red and white beads alternating colors to create the candy cane pattern.

Step 4
  Once the pipe cleaner is almost full, bend the other end of the pipe cleaner.

Step 5
  Shape the beaded pipe cleaner into the shape of a candy cane.

Step 6
  This step is optional, but I would suggest it, I glued the ends of the pipe cleaners to the keep the beads from falling off.

 Candy canes!!

My inspiration was a picture that I found on Pinterest, but the link it came to is in a different language that I don't speak or read, so I just kind of guessed what we needed.

Holiday Season!!

Here we are again coming into another holiday season so prepare yourselves for the overload of Christmas music, shopping, and "cheerful" people. Personally, I try to not stress over the Christmas season just because I'm more looking forward to the food and spending time making presents for family. I've got loads of ideas for Christmas crafts to do with monkey and give away as presents. We've also got a couple of ideas just for decorations for the holiday season. Hope everyone has a special Christmas and is able to spend a lot of time with family and friends. 

More Pipe Cleaner Fun!

Personally, I love pipe cleaners. They're cheap and can be used for multitudes of crafts. Did I mention, they're cheap. So as I've said before, I really try to find as many projects that allow me to spend the least amount of money and reuse things that I already have. This project uses a plastic bottle of any kind. One that is taller is preferred and some cut up pipe cleaners and a magnet. Depending on how old your child is, you'll want a magnet with a handle or one they can hold on to easily. You'll also want to make sure the magnet is strong enough to grab enough pipe cleaners at one time. 

Necessary Items
 Colorful pipe cleaners
 Plastic bottle
 Magnet
 Scissors
 Helpful assistant

Step One
   Cut up pipe cleaners. You'll want them to be smaller than an inch but I didn't measure them exactly. You just want to make sure that there is enough room for movement inside the bottle.

Step Two
   Have assistant put cut up pipe cleaners in the bottle. Work on those fine motor skills.

Step Three
   Tight cap to bottle and give assistant magnet.

Step Four
   PLAY TIME!!

 The magnet that I had wasn't all that strong, so I'm going to be getting a stronger one for monkey to use. But, this craft was fun. She loves playing with the different colors, so it was good practice with her picking out the colors and saying the names.

Here's the original link that I found it from.