Christmas Snow Globes!

Before I start our first Christmas craft post of the season, let me remind you (and myself) of what we did last year.  Just in case you wanted to do one and then forgot what you were going to do.  Because that’s something I would do.

• Easy and clean painted Christmas ornaments
• Paper collage stockings
• Origami advent calendar
• Santa hand prints

The first Christmas craft of this year was something that I never could have done if I hadn’t had the pleasure of babysitting our friends Sophia and Gabrielle this past week.  You see, Gabrielle left behind a treasure.  No, not a dirty diaper.  A baby food jar!!  I ran it through the dishwasher and thought long and hard about what I could make with it.  I decided that snow globes were just the thing.  It turned out that my sister had a baby food jar, too, so both Drew and Clara could get in on this project.  Here’s what you need to do this:

• Hot glue gun
• Baby food jar
• Glitter (Dollar Tree has Christmas glitter right now!)
• Water
• Small Christmasy figures (we used small ornaments that were 50% off at JoAnn’s!)

While your babies are playing with each other, gather the big kids for a project. Make sure to scare the bejesus out of them because there is a hot glue gun on the counter.

First we had the kids pick out three figures each and then we helped them hot glue them to the inside of the baby food jar lid.

Next, add glitter to your jar. The more the merrier!

Then add water to the jar and hot glue the lid on. After many failed attempts at this, let me tell you the trick. Put the hot glue on the outside of the jar, where the threads on the glass are. Then go back and add more glue all around the lid after you put it on.
When it is secure, shake, shake, shake! Watch the glitter swirl!

We’re very thankful…

What are you thankful for? I sat down with Clara the other afternoon and we talked about what it meant to be thankful and then wrote our brainstormed ideas about what she is thankful for on leaves. She had some great ideas. Friends. Yummy food. Nancy. Daddy. Blankets. Juice. Our house. Poop. Yes, I said poop. She got to the point of silliness and that was what came out. But how can you not be thankful for poop, really. I mean, if you didn’t it would be disastrous. Not to mention that it keeps Daddy employed. So we went with it.

Then we glued all of the leaves to a circle that was cut out of an old cereal box and then when it was dry I added a ribbon and hung it up. So everyone can see that we’re thankful for poop. And other very important things.

Of leaves and tools…

Clara always loves to use her Daddy’s tools.  Just yesterday, I found her playing with a wrench and a tea candle.  I’m not sure what the two had to do with each other, but it was important work just the same.  So, when I saw this post about leaf pounding I knew that Clara would love it.  In fact, I think that any preschooler would love it.  They get to actually wield a hammer all by themsleves!  They get to pound leaves that they collected into smithereens!  And then they get to choose a stick and hang it up!  What’s not to love.

Bright and early this morning, because that’s the best time to pound loudly (my neighbors love me!), we set out to find some leaves.  Clara only wanted to pick up dry brown ones (for some reason those are always most attractive to her–maybe its the crunch), but I steered her toward moist yellow and red ones.

Next we set up  the leaves on a piece of white fabric from my fabric scraps box and folded it over so the leaves were in the middle.  Then, Clara began pounding on it with some sort of mallet that I found in the basement.  I was looking for a rubber mallet, but I couldn’t find one.  This one was wooden and had some sort of sand in the top that shook around.  It was actually the perfect heft for Clara, so it worked out perfectly.  Clara and I ended up taking turns pounding because it took quite a bit of it.  You have to pound until you can see leaf juices coming through the material.  Just a note, thinner material is better.  Our second try was with flannel, and it didn’t work out well at all.

While we were pounding, and I was distracted, Nancy grabbed up the extra leaves and started eating!  Apparently, they were delicious.  I had to fish around in her mouth for quite a while to find all of the bits and pieces.  Some may have been swallowed (bad Mommy!).

When we could see that all of our leaves were seeping through, we opened the fabric up, pull the stems and leaf bits off, and volia, instant art.  I cut the material in half while Clara found two sticks, and then stapled the fabric to the sticks and tied a bit of yarn on top as a hanger.  Artwork complete.  Frustrations taken out.  And its only 9:30 am.

Art Wall Update #5

Thank goodness for preschool!  I now have more art than I know what to do with.  Our refrigerator is covered, I’m collecting large pieces to serve as wrapping paper for Christmas, and I have all new art on our art wall.

They are as follows (left to right, top to bottom):

1) Stained glass bat

2) Golf ball painting

3) Shaving cream painting

4) Kitchen tool painting

5)  Celophane color mixing

6)  Grape painting