Crafty stocking stuffer: travel-sized memory game!

This was so easy that a tutorial for it seems silly, but it was a lot of fun, very cheap, and my kids are going to love this travel-sized memory game!

I made this with all stuff I had around the house, and even if you don't have some of the supplies, it's nothing expensive.  I used little 1" square wooden tiles that I picked up at the craft store a while ago (I paid a few bucks for a bag of 100), a tiny bit of milk paint to paint the back (I love milk paint, because it's nontoxic and very eco-friendly, and will NEVER chip.  You can use any type of paint you want, but you might have to use a sealer on top), a pad of scrapbooking paper, a foam brush and modge podge (I made my own modge podge mixture with a 50-50 mix of Elmer's Glue-All -NOT school glue- and water).  

Paint the backs of all the tiles in the same color. I used this slate-blue shade of milk paint.. as you can see, milk paint absorbs into the wood, so it doesn't have that same "perfect" look and finish as other paints.  But it's easy to use, and doesn't chip - just don't get it onto your table or counters, because it's nearly impossible to remove!

While the paint dries, cut enough squares of scrapbooking paper for all your tiles.  I used 16 tiles, so I cut 8 matching pairs of scrapbooking paper to give me 16 total squares.   I used shades that were very similar in color and in style, to require increased visual discrimination.  If you're working with a younger kid, or one who is easily frustrated, pick very different colors and patterns for your pairs.  

Now for the fun part.... modge podge all the little squares of paper onto the "right" (unpainted) side of the wooden tiles.  The trick with modge podge, especially homemade modge podge, is to use VERY thin layers.  Wait for each layer to dry, then do another layer on top.  I did about 5 very thin layers, letting the whole surface dry between layers.  

Once the final layer of modge podge is dry, you're done. See, it's so super easy, but it's very cute, totally portable, and so cheap it doesn't matter if one gets lost somewhere. 

Advent calendar

I spent the better part of today setting up our Advent Calendar! 

This was really, really easy.  I cut Christmas Trees out of card stock, then cut tiny tags to put the numbers on.

I wrote the activity for the day on the back of the tree, then used a small piece of pipe-cleaner to hook the number tag to the tree.  (The reason for not putting the numbers right on the tree is simple.... by putting the numbers on a separate tag, I can exchange the activities for day number 4 and day number 9, for example.. by being able to move the numbers, I can change the schedule to fit our plans for the month as they develop!)

I ran a piece of silver ribbon through the pipe cleaner on each tree, to hang them.  Super cute and easy. 

For anyone interested, here are the activities we used (but, like I said, don't get attached to the order.  I am nearly certainly going to rearrange some of these throughout the month!)

1 Make salt dough ornaments

2 Coloring page

3 A Christmas Carol movie 

4 Candle craft

5 Make chocolate chip cookies

6 St. Nicholas Day celebration! 

7 Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer movie 

8 make a Christmas tree snack

9 Paint salt dough ornaments 

10 in search of santa

11  coloring page

12 Make spiced apple cider

13 the story of Christmas

14 Go for a walk and see the Christmas lights!

15 the Happy Elf movie 

16  Make sugar cookies

17  Decorate sugar cookies 

18 The 12 Dogs of Christmas movie 

19 coloring page

20 Christmas tree button crafts

21 Graham Cracker Gingerbread houses

22 make chocolate spoons 

23 make Christmas creamer for Christmas morning coffee tray

24 Christmas cake for baby Jesus

Feelin' Crafty: Applesauce cinnamon ornaments!

My house smells like Christmas now!  The cinnamon scent is wonderful this time of year, and the kids had a ton of fun making these small ornaments.  :-)

These are so easy to make and, while I wouldn't eat them (probably wouldn't taste good), they are made with totally harmless ingredients!  I love that!

We used a 1 to 1 ratio of plain, unsweetened ("natural style") applesauce and cinnamon (I used 1 1/2 cups of each, but any amount will be fine as long as it's a 1 to 1 ratio).

It makes a "dough" pretty easily, I just blended with a spoon (just to note, wash the bowl and spoon fairly quickly afterwards!).  

I let the kids flatten their section of dough with their hands, then they tried the rolling pin to make it flat.  They used our plain metal Christmas cookie cutters to cut out the ornaments.

                                    

They'll take a while to dry.  From how mine are going, I'm guessing 4+ days - but it's super humid here, so maybe yours will be faster. Make sure to poke a hole for thread/ribbon if you're going to use them as ornaments.  After I took this picture, I ended up taking sticks from the yard, breaking them into small pieces, and using them to keep the holes open while they are drying - much, much easier than re-poking the holes every hour for the next 4 days.  

Feelin' Crafty: Christmas ornament re-do!

Today, the kids took ornaments we had from a few years ago, and made them into kid-masterpieces for our tree. 

These are the ornaments we started with.  I picked them up at Ikea a few years ago, and I love them!  They were perfect with our sleek, modern, white-and-gold tree.  But, now the kids are old enough to want to help with the tree... so, this year, the tree is multicolored, bright, and traditional.  I was not willing to sacrifice these ornaments, though, so I had the kids re-make them into wonderful, colorful, and bright works of art.  

Here's what we started with: heart ornaments, markers, glue stick, and a cup of sequins. 

Color first!

 Then use the glue to add the sequins.

Here they are on the tree, aren't they cute?

Feelin' Crafty: Kid-made chocolate stirring spoons

We made these as a fun treat for Thanksgiving morning coffee (gotta start that lonngg day of cooking with coffee, right??), but they'd also be super-cute as a Christmas treat or even a Christmas gift!  

These are super-simple to make, and my kids had SO much fun.

You'll need a few things before you start.
- chocolate chips (this is kind of up to your taste.  we like dark chocolate in our coffee, so I used semi-sweet.  If you're more of a "pour on the sweet" type of coffee drinker, then probably milk chocolate would work better for you.)
- plastic spoons (just a note, you will be putting these into hot melted chocolate.  I always recommend a good brand of plastic spoons so they don't melt)
- clear plastic wrap (to wrap up the spoons)
- ribbon (I forgot to buy Thanksgiving ribbon, so I used leftover Christmas ribbon from last year.  Thus, the weird green-and-gold combination)

- decoration, as wanted (I forgot to buy this, too, so we used leftover sprinkles.  I will say that my coffee-purist husband won't use the chocolate spoons with any decor on them - the semisweet chocolate is as far as he's willing to go)

First step is to melt the chocolate.  True confessions, we don't own a microwave.  We used to... but we never really used it.  Plus, I hate to clean it.  AND, our tiny crackerjack box house has a tiny kitchen, with no room for a microwave.  So, I melt chocolate in a glass bowl over a metal pot of boiling water - think a DIY double boiler.  A microwave would also work.

Let the chocolate cool just a TINY bit, then stir it and pour it into a bowl.

Dip the first spoon into the chocolate... and kinda try to get as much on the "right" side of the spoon as you can.  The back of the spoon should be wiped as clean as possible, because that's the side that will lay on the plastic wrap.

Then drop your decorations onto the still-hot chocolate.

Then place the chocolate onto a small square of plastic wrap and let it sit.  When the chocolate has cooled and hardened, pull the plastic wrap around the spoon and tie it together with a pretty ribbon.

Store in the fridge up to a week before use. 

Thanksgiving Printable Fun Set

I'm so excited to share this with you all!  With Thanksgiving this week, I'm certainly ready for a little break and some fun with my kids, and this printable fun set is going to be a great place to start! This is a 21 page printable set that contains tons of games, crafts, and activities for toddlers and preschoolers.

For our family, having some fun games and activities on-hand during "breaks" is a good way to keep my kids busy, active, and engaged.  I generally prep these activities the beginning of the week (I'll be doing that today), and keep them on-hand to pull out when they are getting a bit tired, or when I need a few minutes to do some holiday baking!

Like always, to skip the breakdown and go right to the download, just scroll to the very bottom.

Cutting strips (page 2). 

Dominos (pages 3-4).

Cut the pictures and create a collage (pages 5-6).

                                        

Make a Pilgrim's Hat (page 7).

                                       

Cut and decorate a leaf and feather (pages 10-11).

Go-Fish Cards (pages 12-15).

Memory (page 16).

Build-a-turkey (page 17).

Roll-a-Dice dominos (pages 18-20).

Leaf Coloring (page 21). 

Push-pin leaf (page 22).

Thanksgiving Fun Set

Linking up to:
Thanksgiving Traditions

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Feelin' Crafty: Kid-Made Thanksgiving Turkey Namecards

Check out the cute turkey namecards my kids made for Thanksgiving!

Here's what we started with: "tubes" (I made mine from rolled and glued cardstock.  Toilet paper rolls or cut paper towel rolls would work REALLY well, I just never remember to save mine!), feathers (freehanded from construction paper), noses, eyes, and turkey bodies (I freehanded them.. it's loosely a peanut shape, with an exaggerated roundness on bottom.)

The Princess generously agreed to demonstrate how she made daddy's turkey.  :-)  She wrote the letters for "daddy" on the feathers.

She used a gluestick to glue to eyes, the red "gobbler" and the nose into place.

This turkey was having trouble standing up, and it was frustrating her, so she glued a strip of cardstock to the back.

She glued the feathers to the back of the turkey, making sure to place them in the right order to spell the name correctly.

Once the feathers are kind of dry (doesn't take long with glue stick), glue the turkey to the tube.  Make sure it stands up, and you're good to go!

Linking up to:

Thanksgiving Traditions

Feelin' Crafty: Kid-Made Thanksgiving "leaf" placemats.

Continuing our crafts that we'll use for our Thanksgiving dinner (or, since our plans are now up in the air for Thanksgiving dinner, maybe for a Thanksgiving breakfast or brunch), the kids made placemats decorated with leaves.  

We used white cardstock (we used regular letter-sized, because that was big enough for kid-sized placemats), fake leaves, school glue (just a bit to hold the leaves in place) and self-sealing laminating pouches.  (I had actually grabbed a regular laminating pouch to do this, then when I heated up the laminator, realized that putting fake leaves and school glue through the laminator was probably a fire hazard, so we changed to the self-sealing at the last moment.

The kids glued the leaves onto the cardstock, just enough to hold the leaves in place for the laminating process.

Then we laminated the sheets, being sure to press the leaves down flat all around (right after I took this picture, I realized that I should use a self-sealing laminator pouch instead, so we switched).  The self-sealing laminator pouches can be a touch tricky, so little kids (and even bigger kids) might need some help to get them flat.  Make sure to get the corners of the leaves straight and flat onto the paper before pressing down the sticky side of the laminating pouch.  

One of them (the one in the back of the picture) got a bit bumpy from the laminating, but it still looks cute.  These would be nice with another colored background, too.  

Super-cute!