Friday, December 5, 2014

12 Days of Christmas Crafts | Day 4 | Popsicle Snowflakes

Today's craft does not include a lot of photos, unfortunately. There are two reasons for this: 1. It went so fast. 2. L decided he REALLY wanted to help and kept sticking his cute little chubby hands in every photo! :) (See below!)
 I do have enough that you can get the general idea, though!

Here are the supplies we used:
 Popsicle sticks (K chose blue because we had them in the stash, but you could obviously use any color!)
Those awesome double sided sticky dots from yesterday's craft
MORE buttons!!
That's all!

We started by using the sticky dots to build the snowflake.


K then chose which buttons he wanted to use, and we added the sticky dots to the back and stuck it on a popsicle stick. We did this until he was satisfied with the results, and added a huge one to the center at the end!



This craft took less than 10 minutes! The perks of not having to wait for glue to dry!! ;)
I am probably going to add some string to this so we can hang it on our tree! :)


Tomorrow I have a very special craft to share, so be sure to check back!! :D

Thursday, December 4, 2014

12 Days of Christmas Crafts | Day 3 | Toilet Paper Roll Reindeer and Tree

HI!

Today we are using up some toilet paper rolls I had saved for a Thanksgiving craft we never got to!!
For the first one, we made a cute little reindeer!
Here are the supplies we used: (I didn't get them all in the photo!)
A tp roll
fuzzy pompoms (red)
two small black buttons from my stash
textured brown cardstock
Kyle's hand
scissors
pencil
tape
double sided sticky dots
black marker


 I first traced both of K's hands onto the cardstock and cut them out.

Then we taped them to the back side of the roll.

K picked a red pompom for the reindeer nose. He wanted it to be like Rudolph. I used a double sided sticky dot to add the nose and eyes. I didn't feel like being patient enough for glue to dry!


To finish it off, K drew a mouth on Rudolph. He said he wanted it to look like he was saying hi! I think he accomplished that! Haha



The second one we made was a Christmas tree. I used a piece of green cardstock, and cut out a (not perfect) triangle shape. Then I fringed the edges.
The button stash!



After that. I let K go to town with 'decorating' the tree. He decided to add all the buttons in a straight line. I used the double sided sticky dots again to adhere the buttons to the paper. L even tried to get in on the action!


All done!! He topped it off with a yellow pompom 'star'.

I used some more sticky dots to stick it to the tp roll, and because I cut the tree little tall, I had to use a popsicle stick to secure it in the back so it wouldn't fall over!



Tomorrow we will be making snowflake ornaments with popsicle sticks!!

Wednesday, December 3, 2014

12 Days of Christmas Crafts | Day 2 | Coffee Filter Snowflakes

Welcome to day 2!!
Today we made coffee filter snowflakes. I've had a stack of coffee filters hanging around for a while. We own a Keurig, but, we had a drip coffee maker for our camper. We got rid of that coffee maker when we moved , so I really had no use for the filters. I decided they needed to be put to good use!
I'm sure you have seen the gazillion tutorials for different versions of these on Pinterest. If not, you're in the right place!! :)

This craft was kid-friendly enough for my almost 4 year old. He really enjoyed cutting all the shapes. I didn't get a picture of our supplies, but we used:
Plain scissors
Decorative scissors
Hole Punch
Markers
Spray bottle with water
Tape
And, of course, coffee filters.
I folded each filter in half 3 times, so it looked like a piece of pizza when I was done. For a couple of them, I drew shapes that Kyle could cut, but we mostly just free handed everything.


We made quite the mess!!



  At the end, we decided we wanted to color a few. (This is where the markers and spray bottle come in!) We colored all over the filter with washable markers, then Kyle got to spray them with water. He really enjoyed watching all the colors run together. Once they were all dry, we cut them into snowflakes, too.


While they were drying, we hung up our white ones. They made a great decoration for our big sliding door!! (This photo was before we added the colorful ones!)




What crafts are you working on?? Feel free to share your photos over on my Facebook page!!

Tuesday, December 2, 2014

12 Days of Christmas Crafts | Day 1 | Painted Wine Bottles

Hey, hey! Welcome to December!
In an effort to get back into my crafting, I have decided to do a 12 days of Christmas crafts! They may not all be specifically Christmas related, but at least winter-y. Most will even be kid-friendly since I will be doing them with at least one of my boys. :)

I have been pondering painting wine bottles for a while now, but I never had a good idea of what I wanted for our home. I saw some really great ones on Pinterest, but A. I wanted ours a little more original, and B. They just didn't "fit" with what I wanted. This morning, I was rummaging through my craft box, and came across some Martha Stewart tinsel glitter and Pearl Ex powder pigments that I have had for a while and have never used! I thought they would be perfect! 
I gathered all the supplies I wanted...


    Then got to work removing wine bottle labels, and painting them all white. 



For the first bottle, I poured a little of the pigment powder into the lid so I didn't have a load dump onto my bottle! Then I sprinkled it all around. I really loved how it fell onto the bottle. I sed these two colors, and layered them until I was satisfied. I ended up doing two bottles this way.
These are the two colors I chose...





For the next bottle, I painted it white, and just sprinkled the tinsel glitter all over, heavier at the bottom, and lighter at the top. I originally had a different idea for this one, but I was happy with the simplicity of it. I may add  a glitter snowflake once we open our ornament box. I'll add an updated photo if I do. :) 

 

Here they are drying on my sink, out of the reach of the littles! I will be finishing the tinsel glitter one by adding a layer of mod podge for protection. For the powdered ones I will spray them with a clear sealant. We don't want glitter or powder all over the house, do we??



once that was all done, I added some leftover clippings from our tree and put them on the ledge at our entry way. I will be adding more to the entry way in the next few days! I can't wait to share my post on how we decorate our house this year!

 


There you have it. A super easy craft. I didn't have my son help with this one, but you could definitely have a little one pour on some glitter or help with the painting if you are brave enough! All three bottles took me less than an hour (during nap time!) to complete! I would love to see your versions if you decide to paint any bottles this season!

Stay tuned! Tomorrow I will be sharing a kid-friendly snowflake craft! :)