Cinnamon Ornaments

I wanted to share this before Christmas, but it just didn’t happen.  What with Christmas week and all.  Because this year, we celebrated for a week.  Anywhoo, as part of our celebration we made these awesome smelling cinnamon ornanments from this blog.    They were super easy, just applesauce, cinnamon, and a little bit of glue.  Clara wasn’t really into them.  She made like two and then took off.  I suspect it was because I told her she couldn’t eat the dough even though she wanted to and they smelled so good.

Drew was super into  them, though mostly because of his love of the angel and Pooh Bear cookie cutters.

Nancy also got in on the action and I made a little handprint ornament with her and after it was dry labled the back so that I’ll remember whose little handprint it is.  I put a hole in the top of each of them with a straw and after drying them in the oven we added some ribbon and they got a special place on our tree.  Even after we were gone for a week, I could still smell the cinnamon when I walked in the door.  Super!

Wrapping and Crafting

What to do when you’re trying to wrap up all your Christmas presents with a lot of toddler help?  Turn it into a collage!

Merry Christmas from our family! More Christmas themed posts later this week, hopefully before the big day!

Pine Cone Christmas Ornaments

Need a super simple Christmas ornament project? So simple that two three year olds did it while their Mommy’s relaxed on the floor with the babies? So engrossing that half an hour later they were still at it? Here it is! You only need four things to make this: a package of ten glitter pens from Dollar Tree, two Ponderosa pine cones from a tree near Grandma’s house, ribbon, and a three year old. That’s it. Set them free. The fine motor skills needed to wield the glitter pens and open and close them are the perfect mix of challenging and achievable. When they are dry, which took two days at our house due to the amount of glue put on them, tie a ribbon around the cone and hang on your tree.

2010 Advent Calendar

Last year I made an origami advent calendar, which I loved.  But, it was not the most sturdy of calendars– some of the ribbons pulled off and left holes and it was hard to get the cups off the string to let Clara open them, so when my sister mentioned that she wanted to make an advent calendar, I decided I wanted a new one, too, and we were off on a mission to make one.  We researched and found this one and this one, which we loved.  A bonus was that they were made of magical recycled items: toilet paper rolls.  We asked all of our friends and family to save theirs for us.  We needed twenty-four each, after all! Here’s how we put together our advent calendars!

Materials:

• 20″ x 40″ piece of cardboard
• about 1/2 yard of felt (enough to cover the board)
• yellow, green, and brown paint
• 24 toilet paper rolls
• number stamps and stamp pad
• wooden star
• rickrack
• stapler and staples
• hot glue gun
• assorted decorations (optional)

Directions

1)  Ask your kids to paint the toilet paper rolls after you staple the bottoms closed and fold them in half.  Hopefully yours will paint more than ours did.

2) When the kids are done painting, or have given up, finish the rest yourself. You will need three brown and twenty-one green. Also, paint the star yellow. Add extra coats of paint as needed. We needed three coats in the end.

3) While the rolls are drying, cover your board with felt (we just stapled it into place), then add a rickrack border using your hot glue gun.

4) Lay out your tree with the star on top on the board and hot glue all of the rolls into place in the shape of a tree.

5) Use number stamps and stamp pad to number the days until Christmas.

6) Add a hanger to the back and any other decorations you would like. I liked the simplicity of just a tree with a star, whereas Kristen added snowflakes, presents, and ornaments to her tree.

7) Add candy, activities, toys, or ornaments to the rolls and hang on the wall. Open one a day until Christmas!