Christmas Craft: Felt Ornament Kits

While out shopping for supplies for Wildman’s Super Mario Bros. party I stumbled upon two adorable felt ornament kits in the dollar bin at Jo-Ann Fabrics.

I put them in my cart knowing that they would save the day when afternoon boredom set in.  I was right!  The boys were looking for something to do a couple of weeks ago and the ornament kits came to the rescue.  Cutie Pie chose the gingerbread man and Wildman took the reindeer.

I set the boys up on some newspaper with a couple of bottles of white glue and let them have at it while I made dinner.  My only instructions were to keep the glue on the newspaper and try to make the kit pieces look like the package photo.  I think they did a pretty good job!  Sure the gingerbread man’s pants are upside down and the reindeer has a holly growth on its cheek but who cares?  The boys were entertained and I got to make dinner in peace 🙂

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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.

Decorating the Tree

J and the boys picked up our Christmas tree from Lowe’s last weekend.  Wildman chose the family this year.  It might be a little squatty and it might shed its needles like mad but we think she’s a beaut!

We finally got around to decorating it on Tuesday evening.  We only had one ornament casualty.  The skiing Christmas bear’s skis were severed when he fell from a branch.  A little super glue fixed him right up though.

Wildman also insisted on a lighting pattern.  Red, green, green, red.  I love that he’s totally taking ownership of the tree this year 🙂

We made sure to honor J’s grandmother who passed away earlier this year by hanging some of her handmade beaded ornaments.  They bring a nice retro feel to our tree.  I really like them.

I took a little self portrait to prove that I was there, soggy hair and all!  J took a few pictures of me but they came out a bit blurry.

We had a nice time hanging all of our special ornaments right before the boys’ bed time.  I like to think that they will look back on these holiday traditions fondly.  J and I sure will!