glitter | Adventures of Four

Christmas Craft: Air-Dry Clay Ornaments

So, I picked up a tub of white Crayola air-dry clay when I was at Walmart a couple of weeks ago. I thought the boys might like to try making some Christmas ornaments with it. Last year they loved working with salt dough so I figured that this would be just as fun. And no baking! That was a plus for me 🙂

It was really pretty simple. I rolled out some of the clay on a piece of parchment paper. It was probably about 1/4″ thick because I knew the boys would be stamping Christmas imprints and the ornaments had to be thick enough to withstand a heavy stamping hand…

We used my circle cookie cutter (the one I use to make round sandwiches for the boys’ lunch) to make a bunch of shapes. The boys got sort of tired of simple circle shapes after a while and resorted to making some more amorphous, alien-looking ones. Too bad I didn’t take any photos of them!

We got out my Christmas stamps and went to town stamping all sorts of holiday images onto the wet clay shapes. You’ll note that the stamps were not exactly clean when the boys stamped. I figured that the black ink would not be an issue since we would be painting the ornaments anyway.

I used a bamboo skewer to make holes at the tops of the ornaments and also to write the boys’ names on the back with the year. We let our masterpieces dry overnight on the parchment paper. The next day, Wildman was really sick on the couch and did not want to finish his ornaments. Cutie Pie insisted that we do his though so I got out some scrapbooking paint in red and green as well as some green glitter. Cutie Pie did a great job of painting the fronts of his ornaments and then sprinkling just the right amount of sparkle on top.

We let the paint dry over night then I added a bit of baker’s twine and a jingle bell to Cutie Pie’s ornaments. I think they turned out great! The grandparents are going to love theirs. I know you can’t really see the stamps due to the copious amount of paint/glitter that was applied but I just love them! Wildman will be decorating his as soon as he’s feeling 100% again.

Painting Pumpkins

Yesterday was the kind of day that I love! It was mild and breezy. Just perfect for throwing open the doors and letting the air flow through the house. No air conditioning required! I have not been able to do this since early spring. It’s been too darn hot and, unfortunately, it’s supposed to get hot again. When these awesome cool days come our way we have to take immediate advantage of them because they surely won’t stick around.

B came over to play while Steph took our Tuesday morning Zumba class. I had a couple of extra mini pumpkins sitting on the counter from our visit to the pumpkin patch. When I suggested painting them Cutie Pie and B screamed YEEEESSSSS!

I located 5 tubes of Elmer’s washable paint. It comes in these handy little paintbrush containers so there wasn’t much preparation or mess to clean up. I let the boys go crazy with the colors.

Then we added some bling in the form of glitter. (Yes, Cutie Pie’s shirt is on backward. That’s what happens when little dudes dress themselves.)

The boys were so proud of their work! I think they came out pretty darn cute too.

When Wildman came home from school and saw B and Cutie Pie’s creations he said that he wanted to paint a pumpkin too. I immediately honored his request because he’s not a very artsy-crafty kid. It’s a rare occasion when Wildman wants to do an art project.

I set them Wildman and Cutie Pie up on Cutie Pie’s little table in his room. Since the Elmer’s paintbrushes had been used up earlier that morning we opted for old school painting. Luckily, Cutie Pie’s little table is protected by a layer of vinyl that stapled on when we got it. Clean up was a snap!