Ten easy crafts to do with your kids this holiday season

Hi friends! Today I’m going to share ten different projects and ideas I’ve collected from around the internet that you can do with little ones to get excited for the holidays. You can find pins about all of these ideas on newlyweds Pinterest here:

1. Plaster hand print ornaments and salt dough ornaments

 

image via roxycraft.com

   Using plaster of paris sets or making your own salt dough is a great way to preserve little hands, feet, and fingerprints for years to come. Your basic salt dough recipe is one part flour, one part salt, and half part water. Another great example of salt dough ornaments is this evergreen ornament I found at roxycraft.com. Simply poke a hole in the top and bake them at a low temperature or let them dry out overnight before stringing them up and hanging them on the tree.

2. Hand print wreaths

 

Lots of kids make these in school but it’s fun to put a twist on them and make them at home, too. You can use thumbprints to add holiday berries and try out different colors and glitters to match the rest of your decor at home. Plus what kid doesn’t like squishing their hands around in paint? I love this example but can’t find  what site it’s from other than the pinterest pin. If you know where it’s from let me know so I can give it credit.

3. DIY personalized ornaments

 

image via thenerdswife.com

There are so many different ways to make ornaments. I love these personalized ornaments that I found on thenerdswife.com. (plus what an awesome site name, right?!) You can also use clear ornaments to insert holiday family photos, small vacation keepsakes, confetti, anything you might want that’s small enough to fit. Another great idea for small children is to use a wooden abc block with the first letter of their name. Let them decorate it up and paste a photo of them on front. you can drill a hole through the corner and tie it to a ribbon to easily hang it up on the tree.

4. Decorate sugar cookies

The possibility of decorating cookies are about as endless as the possibilities of what to stick in your ornament. Let your kids help you make up the dough, and after they’ve cooled set a few aside just for them to decorate. You can even use my sugar cookie recipe here for allergy free cookies! For some extra fun stock up on some edible pearls, metallic dragées (those shiny silver and gold balls), different types of sprinkles, licorice, jujubes, chocolate chips and kisses, the list goes on. Then just sit back and watch as your child creates a giant sugary monstrosity of a cookie, lol. To keep things a little less hectic you can tell them they’re decorating for Santa, and that they need to keep it neat and make nice cookies for him!

5. Reindeer ‘food’

 

I think that this is absolutely adorable for small kids to do that still believe in Santa Clause. Make a mixture of oats, glitter, and birdseed and seal it up in a small baggy. On Christmas eve go outside together and scatter the reindeer food. When my brothers were little one year I went outside and left tracks in the snow to make it look like Santa and his reindeer came to see the treat we’d left outside. You can make reindeer prints easily by taking a piece of cardboard and cutting it into a hoof print shape, then hot gluing a dowel onto the back to easily press it into the snow. If you wear some big boots while you walk around it will look like Santa got out of his sleigh and walked around while the reindeer had their snacks. This is another image I couldn’t find a link back to, but clicking on it will take you to a printable pdf version in Google docs.

6. Elf on the shelf

 

image via midgetmomma.com

 

I’ve heard so much about this little elf this year it’s crazy. Apparently it’s been around for a while now but it seems to have just made a comeback. You can get your own elf here at elfontheshelf.com. Each night your elf comes alive and flies to the north pole to report back to Santa about who’s been naughty and who’s been nice. He’s full of Christmas magic, but he can’t be touched or else his magic will fade away. When the kids wake up each morning the elf is in a different place and up to something mischievous! This page from midgetmomma.com has 60 different ideas for how your curious elf can entertain your kids throughout the holiday season.

7. Design your own stockings

 

image via atcompanyb etsy store

 

If your Christmases are anything like mine were growing up, the first things to get tackled Christmas morning are the stockings. We all had the same stocking each year growing up and I love the idea of a home made, personal stocking. They don’t have to be sewn and made from scratch either. You can find plain stockings at craft stores and dollar stores and use no sew fabric glue to attach ribbons and trim. Use puffy paint and glitter paint for designs and add buttons and bows. You can do this each year or every few years and look back and see how your child’s creativity has grown over the years.

 

8. Design Christmas/Holiday cards

 

image via beautyandbeard.blogspot.ca

 

Christmas cards are another thing that is fun and are super easy to make. I love these from beautyandbeard that use paint chips and sequins to make cards. Some other good things to use on your cards are buttons, beads, craft paper, newspaper, ribbons, acrylic paint, stamps, pipe cleaners or stickers. You can find blank cards or card stock at just about any craft store for cheap. Add a holiday family photo to the front and have everyone add their signatures to the outside wishing others happy holidays. To keep short attention spans on track you can make each card different, or do just a few cards to send to close family members.

 

9. Snow globes from mason jars

 

image via craftaholicsanonymous.net

 

This project generally involves using hot glue so it isn’t necessarily ideal for small children, but it’s a great way to let their creativity shine. You can make any scene that you’d like inside these and they are really fun to shake up and watch all the glitter/snow fall to the bottom. Plan out ahead of time what scene you’d like to create or go shopping together at the craft store to pick out items together.

10. Discuss what Christmas/ the Holiday season is REALLY about

To me, this is the absolute number one thing we should be doing with our children each year. Regardless of our religion, race, gender, income or where we live in the world, it is of the highest importance to teach our children compassion and respect. Even more so nowadays when holidays are looked at as a stressful time when people rack up hundreds or even thousands of dollars in debt and seem to become more obsessed with material possessions than any other time of the year. Life goes by fast, stress builds up and sometimes we tend to overlook the little things that really make life meaningful.

The memories that stick with me from my Christmases growing up aren’t of each and every gift I got, it’s of my grandmother making us all sit in a big circle and telling us the story of Christmas. Teaching us to love, respect, and forgive each other because that’s what was done for us. I remember the giant family dinners we used to have at my great grandmothers house and playing with cousins and second cousins after scarfing down huge amounts of chicken and dumplings and mashed potatoes. When you take away all the material things, the only things we have left are each other. This year don’t just make these gifts and projects with your children, make memories with them. Teach them that the love and cheer we all want to spread during the holidays is something we should strive for year round.

Til next post,

Amber

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Holiday Wreath With Lights

Hello again!

As you know I went to Michael’s and Dollarama yesterday to get some new goodies for Christmas decorations and I may have went a little overboard, lol. But… that just means more cool stuff to share with you guys! The first Christmas craft post I’m going to do is for a lighted wreath. I found little battery operated holiday lights at the Dollarama for $2 and decided they would look adorable around my wreath.

The wreath itself came from Michael’s for $4.99 as well as the ribbon I used which was originally $6.99 but I used a 50% off coupon that you can find here until November 21st. For the US coupon you can click here. Everything else I used came from the Dollarama. I got the lights, a poinsettia garland and a holiday berry garland.

 

First off I wrapped the berry garland around my wreath. I realized after I got home that I was down to my last stick of hot glue so I just wound it into my wreath. The stem has wire inside so it stayed really well, but you’ll probably want to hot glue it down.

 

Next, I pulled off all of the decorations that were on the poinsettia garland because the plastic stems to me look a little tacky, plus it didn’t wind around the wreath very well.  I put them all in a big pile next to me then started hot gluing them onto my wreath one by one.

I tried put leaves under each flower and berry cluster and made sure to leave a gap where I wanted the ribbon at the top to be.  Then I took my ribbon and cut lengths just long enough to wrap around the wreath once. Any bare section got a bit of ribbon. I took my lights and poked them through the wreath from the back in order to hide the wires and tucked the battery box into the side. Lastly I made the big bow at the top and a loop to hang it on the wall and it was all done! Here it is with the lights turned off and with them on.

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Christmas Decoration Haul!

Hey all!

Today I just wanted to share with you all the goodies that I picked up and give a little sneak peek at some of the Christmas decoration ideas I have planned to show. Over the next week or two I’ll be posting up all about the decorations I’m doing for Christmas time. I got super excited while I was out because I found so many awesome things to use. Tomorrow I’ll share with you guys how I made my wreath that’s hanging over my fireplace.

Here’s some things that I already had in my holiday trunk as well as all the stuff I picked up today and where I got it all:

  

Here’s all the stuff I got out shopping today:

From Michael’s: Wreath: $4.99, Ribbon: $3.50 (after coupon)

From Dollarama: 2 Poinsettia Garlands: $2.00/ea, Berry Garland: $1.00, Lights: $2.00, 2 Gold and Silver Ornaments: $1.00/ea,

Noel Ornament: $1.25, 2 Gold and Silver Decorative Balls: $1.00/ea, Red Table Runner: $2.00, Decorative Plate: $2.00, My cat Tucker freaking out over the glitter: Priceless.

Things I had already:

I had quite a few things left over from last year that I absolutely love.

Justin’s mom got us these for Christmas last year, I have them on top of our tiny tree.

These are the other decorations I have on our little tree, along with the red beads and ribbon you can see in the background. There’s other silver ones but they’re shiny and you can see the camera, lol.

My snowman night light. Justin’s mom got this for me for Christmas last year as well.

I picked this up at the Dollarama last year, but I can’t find the same ones this year. I love this one more than what’s currently out.

Justin already had this when we moved in together, but I absolutely love it. Mainly because Santa is holding a bunny, lol.

The quirky snowman potholder that was a gift from Justin’s mom. She loves snowmen like I love bunnies, lol. I’m too nervous to put any hot pans on it so it’s a decoration in the living room.

Little bells and a pine cone decoration I picked up at Dollarama. They decorate the garland around the fireplace.

And the decoration that’s over our entryway. You’ll have to excuse the giant piece of packing tape, I ran out of less obvious scotch tape but I still wanted to put it up, lol. I just used two little sprigs I picked up from the Dollarama and added gold bells and ribbon from Michael’s.

And that’s all I have for now! I’ll have my wreath tutorial up tomorrow and Wednesday I’ll see you guys again for an update on how my workouts are going.

Till next post!

Amber

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DIY monogram wreath and other fall goodies!

It’s that time of year again! It’s starting to get colder and I’m putting up my summer decorations and moving on to fall. Except since this is really my first year of doing seasonal decorations I don’t have any fall things to put up. And you know I’m not going to be spending big bucks on pre-made wreaths and centerpieces. I’m going to share what I did to spruce up the apartment for fall all for about $15.00.

My first project: monogram wreath

I’ve been seeing all these adorable door wreaths on pinterest and really wanted to have one for the apartment. Looking at stores around here like Micheal’s and Canadian Tire fall wreaths were $20-$40 dollars. I even found some online as high as $100! A hundred dollars! For a wreath you only have on your door three months out of the year! I could spruce up our entire apartment on a hundred bucks. So after seeing those prices the cheapo in me came out full force and I decided I was going to make an adorable wreath to put those expensive ones to shame, and it was going to be customized to boot. And it was! I’m extremely happy with how it turned out.

DIY it:

Here’s the big bundle of all the things that I got to do my decorating. There’s a few strings of leaves, I got two of them 5 ft for $1.25 and the other was sparkly and was $3. Then I have some ribbon, $1, the wreath, $2, the bowl, $1.25, flowers, $2, and a sprig with leaves and some berries and an acorn for $1.25. I was calling it my “fall haul”, lol.

Phase one: The letter

First I started with the monogram. I cut out a stencil of how big I wanted my letter to be on computer paper. In this picture I hadn’t cut out the middle yet. I also originally made it a little smaller than I wanted to so I just used some tape to make it a little wider. I retraced it to get it as one single piece and cut a scrap of paper to the thickness I wanted my letter to be, making tick marks all around the inside. That way I knew that my letter would be even all the way around.

I cut out the center of the letter with my trusty razor blade (I finally picked up some replacement blades for my box knife after this project, lol) and traced it onto cardboard. I actually used an empty rice box because it was really sturdy, but corrugated cardboard would work well for this too and you wouldn’t have to layer it as much. I wanted it to be a lot thicker than just one sheet of cardboard so I ended up cutting out four letters to stack together. In between each letter I used mounting tape, which gave it even more thickness. If you wanted you could even just buy a wooden letter and skip all of the previous steps.

Then it was time to cover it! You can use any kind of yarn, ribbon, twine, etc. If you used just one thick piece of board you could even just paint it and leave it be. I used some twine because I felt like it went with the fall theme I wanted. I taped the beginning of the twine to the side of my letter and started winding it around. Letters that have holes in them are a little tricky because you can’t really fit the whole spool in there, so you have to work in sections. I made sure each new piece of thread I tied on was on the back of the letter. It was also really tricky transitioning from the curved part to the straight edge. I ended up just laying twine over the letter to fill in the spaces. I was stubborn and didn’t glue it, but I would definitely suggest you glue pieces down every so often as you go.

                      

And then the letter was all done! I love when you finish one stage of a project and it just makes you that much more excited to see the finished product.

Phase two: The Wreath

There are several different things you can use to make your wreath out off. Hangers, pool noodles, picture frames. I originally picked up a woven basket at the Dollar Tree and thought that would be a cool wreath, but when I was at my trusty Dollarama I found pre-made wreathes that were cute, but not what I’d want hanging on my wall. They only had a couple of decorations hot glued onto them though and it was about the size I was looking for. I decided that the basket could stay and basket and I could just deconstruct this wreath and make it into what I wanted. Here’s the before and after:

I took one strand of leaves and wound it around the wreath but I really didn’t like how the leaves were just sticking out all over. I pulled off all the leaves that were on the back and started just hot gluing the leaves down where I wanted them. One of the strands had a couple of pieces of wheat and a cute little pumpkin, so I hot glued those on as well. I also wrapped some ribbon around it to tie everything together. To finish it off I glued on a couple of the flowers I picked up.

After I got everything glued on where I wanted it I took the ribbon and looped it through my letter and tied it onto the wreath. Then I took a longer piece of ribbon and made a loop with a bow at the top to hang it on the wall. And that was that! I hung it up over the fireplace and I absolutely love it. I had quite a bit of leaves and things left over so I did a couple more decorations.

Other decorations:

I used the bowl/basket that I had originally got for the wreath and made a centerpiece out of it for the coffee table. I put some stones in the bottom to weigh it down so it wouldn’t move/get knocked over by the cats. I just added the candle to the middle and arranged left over leaves and the pinecone and berry decoration around it.

The final project I did was to update my vase on the fireplace. I got this vase soon after I moved to Canada and I absolutely love it. It is on our fireplace no matter what season it is and the one time the cats knocked it off I almost had a heart attack. I leave the ‘swirly twigs’ (I have no idea what they’re called, lol.) in there and just add different flowers and decorations to it. I wound the last string of leaves around it and added some extra leaves to the bottom. In the top I put all the extra flowers that I had.

Here’s my fireplace mantle all put together and looking pretty! I love how everything goes together. The incense and holder I found at a dollar store somewhere while me and hubs were out exploring, and the bottle I got at Micheal’s as part of a $3 grab bag. All the rest of the things there are gifts that I love.  I tried I don’t know how many times to get a clear shot of this but every one seemed a little grainy and I don’t know why, so sorry about that!

That’s all for now! Next post I’m torn between either making a photo frame collage for the wall or finding a creative way for covering up an old and unused phone jack in the kitchen. We’ll see next week!!

Love,

Amber

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