Christmas Crafts for Toddlers

'Tis the season - for Toddler Crafts! Christmas was always my favorite time of year to do crafts with my kids. So I'm looking forward to doing some crafts with almost-3-year-old grandson Brayden. There are so many ideas on the Internet -- and so many ways to display his "art work" -- hanging it on the Christmas tree, garlands on the mantle, hanging on the front door, or even outside in the trees for the birds. I've been looking around the 'net for good Toddler activities, and found several I plan on trying with Brayden. My favorite, hanging Christmas ornaments for Birds, is from "Kids Craft Weekly" -- a free newsletter I get in email every week. You can subscribe here. You can also purchase a copy of her ebook Christmas Crafts for $5.00 (PayPal). If her newsletter is any indication of what's in this Christmas Craft book, I'd say it's a good buy! OR you can sign up for a Giveaway of 10 copies of this book at The Crafty Crow. Christmas Ornament for the Birds General directions (it's copyrighted, so you'll have to subscribe to the newsletter to get more specific directions or photos!) From slightly thawed frozen pie crust dough (rolled out flat), use Christmas cookie cutters to cut out shapes. Poke a hole in the top for adding ribbon later. Brush cut-outs with beaten egg yolk, and then press bird seeds and nuts onto the shape. Bake at 375 for about 10 minutes or until lightly brown. Cool completely, add ribbon, and hang outside to decorate the trees for the birds! I'm thinking we could also do cookie dough cut-out Christmas trees with M&Ms for decorations and a ribbon to hang on our tree. Easy Gift for Friends and Family I also want to help Brayden make Christmas gifts for family and friends. He needs to know the joy of giving before the "gimme gimmies" set in in a few years. Read a good article titled "Helping Toddlers Learn about Sharing at Christmas time" here. His gift to others will be a desk calender made from his art work. I saw this idea on a crafty mother's blog, but I simply can't find it again to give credit where credit is due. But here's what I'm planning for Brayden's gift to others. We're combining his fingerpainting artwork, an acrylic frame, a calender and sticky notes to make the desk calender. We're using smaller two-photo acrylic frames (that stand up and bend in the middle) for the base, putting Brayden's art work inside the frame, then attaching sticky mini-calenders on one side, and sticky notes on the other. Brayden's fingerpainting is done and dry, and I'll cut out and put the "art work" in the frames, then have Brayden help me stick on the calender and notes. An option would be to put both the calendar and the sticky-notes on one side, and Brayden's photo on the other... we'll see! This is a very low-cost Christmas present! As you can see by the sticker, I found the frames for .59 cents at a dollar store, the mini-calendars were $2.00 for 10 and the sticky-notes have come from my desk! Christmas Card I'm going to keep this one simple. Brayden is not yet old enough to cut with scissors with any accuracy, however, he can brandish a glue stick with the best of 'em! I will cut out white circles of different sizes from construction paper, as well as snowman hats and carrot noses. I purchased a package of small googley eyes. Hopefully some time before Christmas Brayden and I can get outside and make our first snowman so he knows what a snowman is! Then we will make simple construction paper Christmas cards, letting him glue on the pre-cut shapes and eyes to make a snow man for the cover. As I'm writing this I'm thinking I might introduce him to the fine art of using a paper punch, and have him punch out circles from different colored construction paper, and I'll cut out a Christmas tree. He can glue on the tiny circles to decorate the tree on the front of the card! Sewing Activity I've mentioned before that Brayden and I sew on my sewing machine frequently. He's very good at it (he's a pro! He's been on my lap at the sewing machine since he was 6 months old!) and is excellent at keeping his hand away from the needle at all times. I thought I would cut out some mitten shapes from fabric or muslin scraps, and Brayden could help me sew them together, leaving a small gap which we can stuff with -- jingle bells, Christmas-y spices or catnip (for a gift for Joey the Killer Cat). We could add a ribbon to hang, and possibly use the glue stick again to put some glitter on the front (not for the catnip one, obviously). Holiday Sewing Cards - from FamilyPlayandLearn.com Cut the fronts off greeting cards. Punch holes around the edges of the cards and tie a shoestring to one of the holes. Let toddlers use the cards to learn to 'sew' Reindeer Paper bag Puppet - from FamilyPlayandLearn.com You'll need a brown paper lunch bag, construction paper, glue, red pom poms, felt markers, and googly eyes. Leave the bag closed. Put your hand inside to make a puppet. Now, put your puppet on a table and take your brown construction paper. Trace your hand and cut out the shape to make antlers. Glue the antlers to the top of the puppet. Glue a red pom pom for a nose and googly eyes onto your puppet. With markers, draw a mouth and any other reindeer stuff you want on your puppet! Glitter Bells - from PreschoolEducation.com Need: Cereal Box,Glue, Glitter, Ribbon or Yarn, Misc. Craft Items - such as fabric scraps, beads, etc. Directions: Cut bell shapes out of light weight cardboard. Put the glitter in a plastic sandwich bag. Paint the bell shape with glue, put it in the bag with the glitter and shake until it is coated. Make as many as you want. Let the bells dry. Poke a hole in the top and tie bells together, letting each one hang down about 5-6 inches. You can also decorate with misc. craft items. Glittery Pinecones - from AssociatedContent.com These enchanting ornaments will add an outdoorsy touch to your Christmas decor. And your toddler will be so proud to have his own ornaments hanging from the Christmas tree. Materials: Pinecones of any size Glue Red, green, silver, and gold glitter Coordinating ribbon or string Directions: Either collect pinecones outside or purchase them at a craft store. Let your toddler> drizzle pinecone with glue; then sprinkle with or roll in glitter. Tie a ribbon or string to top of pinecone. Jingle Jingle Jingle! A favorite of my kids when they were ages 6 months to about 4 years -- just tie a few jingle bells on a string, attach the string to each of your child's shoelaces. And watch them dance and jump and stomp and jingle! Other Christmas craft ideas Snowman ornament Brown paper bag Gingerbread men Printables Find the Difference in the two pictures of Christmas items Simple Christmas Tree to Color Simple Snowman to Color Basic Christmas Shapes - Angels, Bells, Snowflakes, Christmas Tree and more. Bookmark this one for your own craft ideas!

Christmas Tree quilt almost finished

Wow - it's been way too long since the Quilt Bug bit around here. But bite it finally did! I'm almost finished with this wallhanging for my family room -- just need to finish tying the tree squares (I like the dimension the tying adds to the tree - the off white background is actually machine quilted, and the tree outline-quilted to give it some more dimension.), and add a bit of machine quilting to the outer border, then add the binding. Can you see my major mistake?? (Click on the photo to view a larger image.) I put in a "knife edge" narrow red border before adding the dark brown border, and didn't realize it was going to hide the top of my tree! I appliqued in this little red bird: The off-white background is already machine quilted, I just need to do some quilting on the borders and add the binding. I may actually finish this one! There's a link to this free pattern on my Quilting on a Budget blog -- look at the posting for November 25th.

This and that...

Back to real life... Thanksgiving is behind us, Christmas is knocking at the door... Lists need to be made (cleaning, Christmas card, mailing by date, gifts left to buy...), and what am I doing? Quilting! Really for the first time in many, many months, the quilt bug bit me and I spent almost the entire weekend working on a patchwork pine tree wallhanging. It's all pieced, borders are on, it's pin-basted and now waiting for me to figure out why my sewing machine isn't liking the metallic thread I want to use... All those months that I could have spent many guilt-free hours quilting, and I wait until the pressure is on for the holidays! But the one thing I know is this: It will all get done. It might get done at the last minute, but it always gets done! No menu planning Monday for me today. Why? Because I don't feel like it! LOL If I sit down to plan my menues, I have to make my grocery list. If I make a grocery list, I have to ruminate over the Krogers ad. If I get out my Krogers ad, I have to gather all my unclipped coupons. Heck, there's enough food in the house to feed 20 people for a week. No menu planning this week. I'll be quilting instead! Let them eat turkey! I won another blog giveaway! Gosh, I don't enter all that many, but it certainly seems to pay off! This one was from The Precious Peas blog, and I'm really thrilled with what I've won. Some "super cool" sunglasses for grandson Brayden! Sssshh...don't tell him. I think they'd make an adorable Christmas present! Although my daughter often has sunglasses on Brayden, I never think about it, and then watch him squint and wince when we're outside in the sun. So these sunglasses from My First Shades are going to be just the ticket. I love the strap idea so they stay on for longer than two minutes! Of course, I have to mention that the Quilting on a Budget blog is having a giveaway too. Make a comment before 12/05/08 and you can win one of two great quilting books, a year's subscription to FAMILY FUN magazine, or a $25.00 Amazon.com gift certificate! We had our first Papa Murphy's pizza here last night. Have you tried these? Yum-BO! You call in an order for the pizza you want (Jeff wanted the Philly Cheese Steak), pick it up, then bring it home and cook it! It seems to be about $5 less than other pizza chain stores, and it really was quite good. Well, OK, I missed my Papa John's garlic butter to dip the crust in, but I'm better off without it anyway. I pre-set the oven while Jeff went to pick up the pizza, and it took just 12 minutes to cook. Fresh taste, nice crust (a little lighter and less bready than most) and a good amount of toppings. Good stuff -- and better than cooking. I made homemade bread last week. Used a standard white bread recipe but added in a few ingredients of my own -- 1/4 cup wheat gluten, a tablespoon of minced garlic, some olive oil, and about 2 cups of grated cheddar cheese, 1/2 cup of grated parmesian, and 1 tsp. of oregano. Oh my! That was good warm from the oven. But even better was having it toasted. It just brought the garlic and cheese flavors to the front and it tasted and smelled like -- ready? -- Cheezits! Can you smell my house from where you sit? Mmmmmmmmm..... That recipe is a keeper for sure. I don't have a lot planned this week -- my regular two days of babysitting, but Jeff will be home on vacation (again) on Friday, so that will make it easy-peasy. If Jeff is here, Brayden is glued to his side. I feed them both, take care of nap time, and that's it. The rest of the day will be boys' day together. The do men stuff. Brayden was here on Saturday and they worked together to fix a floor lamp in my quilt room. Brayden helped hold wrenches, turned screw drivers, and accompanied Jeff to ACE to get new parts. They both love Hardware stores. The store is not 5 minutes from my house, yet they were gone for 90 minutes. Although we had wonderful temperatures on Thanksgiving Day and the day after, we're back to winter here in southwestern Ohio. It's spitting snow and windy. Despite having the thermostat set down to 67 during the day, the heat is running non-stop. Snow is forecast for Tuesday. Whether I like it or not -- winter has arrived. Sounds like a good time to quilt!

Frugal Christmas Wrapping Ideas

I've mentioned before that I like to wrap my online-ordered gifts as soon as they arrive at the front door. So today I thought I'd try and find some frugal ideas for doing the wrapping. My personal favorite that I have done several years in the past is to wrap all gifts in brown paper grocery store bags. I buy a few packages of very inexpensive stick-on stars in red and gold and stick them all over the package, then tie the package with raffia or a coordinating vintage ribbon. (For some reason, my husband bought a moving box full of vintage cloth ribbon a few years ago! I still have 3/4ths of the box left!) Got to love people that make use of plastic shopping bags! I've seen bags made into all kinds of things, but this is so appropriate for the upcoming holidays. Make a holiday package BOW from your plastic grocery bags! Check out the step by step instructions on the Creature Comforts: DIY blog. And God Bless Martha during the holiday season. For once I see a craft on her web site that I can actually do AND afford! I'm going to use last year's Christmas cards to make monogram gift tags! No instructions, but do you really need them? Feeling a little more crafty? Check out Carol Duvall's ideas for re-using Christmas cards - you know you have them! From McCall's Quilting is this GREAT idea for using up your stack of lone quilt blocks. I'm loving this one! Step by step instructions here.

Our Thanksgiving

Our one non-food tradition at our Thanksgiving table is for everyone to hold hands before we eat and say what they are thankful for. This is the first year that 2 year old Brayden is old enough to speak complete sentences, so I took him aside before dinner and explained what we were going to do and why we were doing it, and asked him to think about what he wanted to say "thank you" for. When it was his turn, he got a little shy with all eyes on him, but a very quiet, timid voice, he said, "I'm thankful for lunch." Awwwwwww.... And what did Mr. Fussy Eater eat for Thanksgiving dinner? Spaghettio's and Bread & Butter pickles, of course! Honestly, I didn't care. The important thing is that he was there, sitting at our Thanksgiving Table. What he actually ate really didn't matter. There's the difference between being a grandparent and a parent!