Paper Bag Rudolph Puppet

Okay, I know I am a little bit late on this one but it was so adorable I couldn't pass it up.

Plus, I had promised my kids we would do a Christmas craft and they bugged me every single day so I couldn't say no. I don't really consider the holidays done until after New Years Eve anyways. That is when the tree comes down, officially marking the end of the holidays, so we are still allowed to do holiday projects until then.

Don't worry, I confiscated those scissors he is swinging.

While perusing the web for Holiday crafts that were easy enough for my kids to do and also did not require a lot of costly supplies, I stumbled upon this adorable little project. It is super easy for even very young children to do. My two year old had a blast making it although I did have to assist her with the cutting parts. My five year old did the whole thing no problem without assistance. If you have younger kids I would pre-cut everything beforehand so that they can do the whole project themselves.

Supplies:

-Brown paper bags (the kind used for lunches)
-Construction paper of various colors. (We used yellow for antlers and white for the eyes).
-Pompoms (Red if you are making Rudolph, black or brown for other reindeers)
-Scissors
-Glue sticks
-Markers (Pencil crayons or crayons would also work)
Optional:
-Small bells
-Ribbon
-Any other embellishments you wish to decorate them with.

HOW TO MAKE:

Step 1: Trace you child's hands onto construction paper (whatever color you wish the antlers to be)and cut them out.

Step 2: Glue the cut out hands on each side of the backside of the paper bag, to look like antlers.

Step 3: Cut out two circles from white construction paper and glue onto the front of the paper bag (On the piece that would be the bottom of the bag if it were opened) for eyes. Then create irises by either cutting out smaller circles from black construction paper and gluing them on the middle of the white circles. You could also just draw them on with a black marker.

Step 4: Glue a red pompom onto the paper bag underneith the eyes for Rudolph's nose.

Step 5: Now you can add further embellishments if you wish such as a ribbon color with bells on it. For the younger children simply allow them to decorate their Rudolph puppet with markers or crayon. The possibilities are endless!!

Step 6: Now for the fun part!! Open up your Rudolph bag puppet and put your hand inside.The kids will have a blast making their Rudolph puppets "talk" and putting on a puppet show. If you are feeling particularly inspired you can create a puppet for all of Santa's reindeer!! Maybe even a Santa puppet!!

Coder was super proud of his Rudolph!! I made one to and it was actually pretty fun. The kids love arts and crafts so this was a hit with them. Here is what the finished product looked like.

Nelly's (left), Mommy (middle), & Coder (right)

Do your children enjoy doing crafts? What types of crafts do they enjoy the most?

This post is linked up at the Today's Creative Blog Tuesday Crafty Linky Party. I encourage you to link up your projects as well:)

Thursday Tidbits: Gingerbread Fun!

With so much going on during the holidays we hadn't got to decorate our gingerbread house until Christmas Day.

I hadn't planned on even buying a gingerbread house kit because last years attempt went horribly awry. The walls and roof kept collapsing, there was much frustration and a few choice words on my part and we ended up throwing in the towel and just eating the pieces as they were. However, while shopping at Giant Tiger a few weeks ago with the munchkins I saw that they had gingerbread houses marked down from ten bucks to two dollars in the clearance bin. The best part? They were "PRE-ASSEMBELLED" houses, with all the fixings to decorate it included. (Second best part? A free pair of New Year's margarita-shaped, glittery eyeglasses with purchase!) It came with a bag of gum drops, a bag of colored candy beads, two bags of white frosting, and some candy canes. The house itself was already put together so all we had to do was decorate it. I figured it would be a fun little activity for the kids to do together. I kept putting off actually doing it because I was either to exhausted to bother or I just didn't want to deal with frosting everywhere and the sugar-induced craziness that followed.

Finally, on the afternoon of Christmas Day the kids asked me if they could decorate it. Since the holidays were almost over and the house was already a mess from that mornings festivities, I didn't really have any excuse for saying no. I sat them down at the coffee table with aprons on to protect their new clothes that they insisted on wearing. Chanel had not only her new clothes on but also her new coat from Old Navy that she absolutely refused to take off. I figured icing couldn't be too hard to wash off and was for the most part right, although I learned the hard way that once icing has hardened it is not so easy to get it off of a microfibre sofa. I armed them each with a small bag of icing and some candies and let them go to town.                           

An untimely demise...

 Coder had a blast decorating it and had the most adorable look of concentration on his face the entire time. He had his tongue sticking out of the corner of his oh-so-serious little face, trying to line the candies up just so. Nelly, on the other hand, couldn't have cared less. She was concentrating purely on ingesting the decor. All in all, I would say that the gingerbread house was a success. There were no tears and barely any fighting (except when Nelly would eat a candy that Coder had just painstakingly applied) and the end result was totally cute. We displayed it proudly on the kitchen counter for all of one day until Nelly decided she wanted to relocate it and dropped it trying to pull it off of the counter. There were tears for a minute or so until they realized the could eat the candy now. It was a fun activity that kept them for the most part entertained for half hour or so and it was sweet to be able to display their handiwork, but I think I will skip the gingerbread house next year. It is a little to annoying for my liking, what with the candies repeatedly falling off and trying to get them to decorate with them not eat them. I think next year we'll do gingerbread men instead. Less room for error that way. So what kinds of activities did you do with your children this holiday season?

Simple Pinecone Door Decor

With Christmas just mere days away I couldn't help but notice that my house was lacking as far as decorations go. 

Sure I had lights up and the tree but that is pretty much it. I was feeling pretty festive and was brainstorming easy ways to add some finishing touches to the house. As I pawed through my ornament box (courtesy of my mother-in-law) I came across some adorable faux acorn ornaments. I knew I wanted to use them for something but I wasn't quite sure what. Then I remembered a cute idea I had seen a while back. Don't ask me where I saw it because I honestly have no sweet clue. The pine cone craft I had seen had them hanging at different lengths with the ends gathered and tied in a knot, so it was a bunch of pine cones hanging from ribbon. I decided to try my own variation of the craft and instead hang them one at a time at different lengths. I apologize for the crappy photo quality. I have once again had to resort to using my sons Vtech kids camera until I can pick up some better batteries. This camera really doesn't do it justice. It looks so much beter and more vibrant in real life. The ribbon is a bright red and the tops of the cones have green leaves and red bows, but you can't really tell from the pictures. It is an easy way to add some sparkle to your door and is a welcome change from the standard green wreath. For more inspiration I managed to find a how-to for the exact same craft as the one that inspired me. You can check that out HERE                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  

All you need for this insanely simple project is:

• four pine cones  (Or as many as you wish.You can also use either real or fake pine cones, you can pick fake ones up at your local dollar or craft store for a couple bucks).
• Ribbon (Again the color and width are up to you).
• Scissors
• Thumbtack or tape (Whichever you prefer to hang the ribbons. I used tape myself cuz the tacks were to hard to push into the top of the door).

Step 1) Cut a strand of ribbon for each ornament. Leave a couple extra inches past how long you want it to be so you can hang it over the door.



Step 2) Tie one end of each strand of ribbon to the top of each pine cone. (This was easy for me because these cones already had loops at the top of them but you could also glue the ribbon in place with a glue gun).

Step 3) Arrange them over the top of the door so that they hang down the front of the door. Play around with the spacing and different lengths until you are satisfied then either pin or tape them in place on the back of the door at the top.

**If you are feeling particularly ambitious there are many other variations to this craft and ways to further embellish it. You can dip the pine cones in glitter, spray paint them, add flowers, beaded strands, lace. The possibilities are endless. Feel free to put your own creative spin on it. This craft is going to be added to my Christmas lineup for the coming years but I am definitely going to gussy it up even further next time with glitter and some different color ribbons. This would also be adorable as a fall/autumn craft or you could change up the ribbons to fit almost any holiday (Pale yellow, blue and pink with white glitter cones for Easter, green ribbons with green glitter cones for Saint.Patty's, orange and black for Halloween, etc). Please share your own twists that you added!!


Enjoy your new simple and frugal decoration!!

Creative Teacher's Christmas Gift Idea!

I had originally planned on boring you all with a long, winded introduction on why I decided to start blogging (again), what my inspiration was, and basically my entire life story, but instead I am just going to cut to the chase. I decided to blog again because I have no life. Wait...Let me explain. I am a stay-at-home Mommy to a five year old son and two year old daughter (but that's for another post) as well as engaged to my middle school sweetheart and the father of my children (also another post). Now don't get me wrong, being a Mom keeps me hella busy all by itself. What I mean is, I have no life, other than being a Mom. I am with little people twenty-four-seven. My social life is non-existent. My idea of a good time is grocery shopping by myself.  I have realized that in order to retain some of my sanity I needed to do something just for myself. Since I love writing and love being a Mom, a blog seemed to be the obvious choice. Plus, I can do it at night when the munchkins are in bed:).I had first planned on blogging about something very important and current, but then every, single blog advice article stressed to write about something you know and more importantly, something you are passionate about. Well, there is nothing I am more experienced in and knowledgeable about then being a Mom. Despite the fact that I still have much to learn on the parenting front and still seem to do more wrong then right most of the time, there is absolutely nothing that I love more. So, here we are! However, although the main jist of the blog will be about being a stay at home mom and my family life day to day, I will also touch on whatever other random topics that I find interesting and/or think other mom's might like to read. And now without further adieu, let us jump right into post numero uno!.

Teacher Christmas Care Package from Positively Splendid

While browsing through my Google Reader the other day I stumbled across a simply adorable gift idea for my sons teacher. The post was featured as part of the Positively Splendid "Swell Noel" series and was a guest post by Michelle from A Little Tipsy. Both are A-MAY-ZING blogs and I encourage you to check them out (after you are done checking mine out, of course!). Anywho,  I had been struggling to find the perfect gift for my sons Kindergarten teacher for the past month and this post couldn't have come at a better time. What better gift to give to a teacher who is constantly exposed to snot nosed children then a care package full of health related and actually useful items. The best part? The whole gift, supplies included, cost me under 15$. SCORE!

Before I show you the finished product I am going to give you a quick run through of what I included in it and how I spruced it up! Oh, and you can check out the original and my inspiration for this fabulous idea go HERE!

 The first thing I did was purchase what I planned on putting in the gift basket portion of the gift. Most of it was purchased at the dollar store, however, I did get two or three things from Shoppers Drug Mart. What I decided on was: Hand sanitizer, travel size Tylenol, Hall's cough drops, a lip chap-stick, Extra gum, wet wipes, floss, Nivea hand cream, Christmas mug with candy inside, a small box of chocolates and a pair of Christmas socks for good measure (my son actually picked those out:)

Next I grabbed some supplies so I could decorate my gift basket. These were also from the dollar store and cost about five bucks. I got a Chistmas-y gift basket, red curling ribbon, some gift tags, silver basket filler, and some snowflake print cellophane gift wrap. Actually I splurged a bit on the gift tags, they were about 5$ for eight at Shoppers because all the other ones I saw were really little-kidish.

This is sort of a two-part gift, as you will see                                                        in the finished product. I picked out a box of Kleenex with a cute Christmas design on it.and spiced it up a bit more with some ribbon and a big bow I made.

 Finally, I put it all together and voila! Here is the end result which I like to think is just as pretty as the orginal from Positively Splendid.The finishing touch is the message on the tags. On the box of Kleenex it say "We 'Tissue' a Merry Christmas," and on the basket it says "And a healthy New Year!" Genius!!

I can't wait to give it to Coder's teacher! I hope she will find it as adorable as I do:) So what is everyone else giving their child's teacher for Christmas?

**I linked this project up on Make It Monday's weekly Linky Party and I encourage you to link your favorite card project too!!