Rudolph Nylon Craft

When I was at my sister's house this past weekend to celebrate our family's Christmas, I noticed this really cute craft hanging on a door knob.

Her son had made it at school. I took a closer look and realized it was nylons stretched over a wire hanger! How cool is that? I knew I would not have enough time to collect old nylons and hangers for my whole class, so I made one with my daughter instead. But next year I'm totally going to do this with my class! I started with a pair of old nylons (or "old lady socks" as my nephew called them) and a wire hanger.

I stretched the hanger by pulling the middle part down. Then I pulled on the nylons. I ended up using both legs to make it a little darker. Then I tied them at the top.

My daughter dipped a big red pom pom in glue and put it on the tip of the hanger, where the nose would be. Then she added eyes cut from paper. I showed her where to put them.

For the antlers, I wanted to use handprints. But hers were a little too small!

So I traced my husband's hands and attached those to the top by the hook. They covered up the knot. I used masking tape on the back to hold them in place. Then I found some fun craft paper and made holly and berries from it. I helped Elise stick them on.

And here's how it looks!

I love how it already has a hanger. I hung it from a stocking holder for the pictures, but now it's on the door knob of our closet.

So cute!

Happy Holidays, everyone!

Framed Ornaments Craft

When it came time to think of a holiday gift the kids could make for their parents, I remembered what they made last year.

I loved them! (You can read about them here.) I wanted to do something similar, but a little different. And I was looking around the room and saw our stained glass ornaments hanging from yarn in the windows.

Perfect! So this year we made ornaments.

Actually, I let the kids decide if they wanted to make trees or ornaments. This project takes several steps. I put the frames together for them ahead of time. I used jumbo craft sticks and glue dots. The kids decorated them with sequins. Then I cut squares from white card stock to fit the frame. The kids used blue watercolor to paint the square.

They also painted a strip of card stock with watered-down glue, added tissue paper squares, painted over them with the glue again and added a touch of glitter.

When they were dry, I flipped them over and drew on two triangles or three circles, depending on what the child wanted to make. Those who chose trees cut the triangles out themselves. I cut out the circles for those who wanted ornaments because the kids have a hard time cutting circles. For the ones that were making trees, I added some snow to the bottom of the blue watercolored square with extra white card stock. I just trimmed it to fit.

Then I glued on tiny trunks made from brown construction paper and the kids glued the trees to the square.

For the ornament craft, I left the whole background blue and the kids glued the circles on. They glued one on each side and one in the middle and put them at different heights. I set the frame on top of the square so they wouldn't put the circles too far over on the sides, but it wasn't glued on yet.

I used a clear ruler so I could see the exact middle of each circle and drew a line from the top of the circle up to the top of the frame. After having each child practice making a bow (an oval on one side of the line and an oval on the other side of the line), they made their bows on their craft. I glued the square to the frame using glue dots.

This year I added magnets on the back instead of ribbon for hanging. Still love how they turned out and I'm sure the parents will as well!

And speaking of gifts, my daughter has two college students who help out in her room at day care. I didn't want to forget about them this holiday season, but I also don't have a lot of money to spend. I love all the "mistletoe" gifts I've been seeing online so I decided to do that for them. I found a nail file, some foot scrub, nail polish and fuzzy slipper socks. I put them together in a little bucket that I found at Walgreens and added a tag from The Classy It Girl.

They turned out pretty cute!

Gingerbread Sweeties {Class Display}

Wow, it's been a long time since I've posted. I've been crazy busy lately. I just stopped in to share my holiday class display. The kids decorated a gingerbread boy or girl with glitter glue and buttons.

They didn't make a head because I would be adding their own face!

Then they partnered off and colored a gingerbread house together.

I displayed everything in the hall with the title, The Holidays Are Sweeter With Friends!

I put their gingerbread person next to the house they colored.

Short and sweet! I'll be back soon to share the gifts the kids made for their parents!

Turkey Craft

So a couple months ago I was looking at the tissue box in my bathroom and I really liked the designs. It reminded me of feathers and the blue made me think it would make a good peacock craft.

However, with Thanksgiving coming up, I decided a turkey craft would be a better idea. I also had tissue boxes in orange, brown and green, so I cut those up for the craft. Because I only started saving the boxes for a couple months, I knew I wouldn't have enough for my class to make these. So my daughter and I had another mommy-daughter craft night! We made the whole thing out of the boxes (except for wiggle eyes), but you could also use construction paper.

First we painted the inside bottom of the tissue box with brown paint. We used acrylic because that was the only brown paint I had.

I did help her spread it around because it was really thick. I almost left the box natural, but it was a little too gray for my liking. We also painted parts of the box red and orange, using tempera paint.

While that was drying, I cut out the middle circle of a couple paper plates and put a bunch of glue on them. Then we stuck on the feathers that I had cut out from the boxes.

With older children, you could probably let them glue the feathers directly onto the back of the turkey body, but I thought this way would be easier for my 20-month-old daughter. I let her put the feathers on any which way. She loved this part and kept adding more glue.

When she was done, we took a little break to let everything dry. The painted parts dried pretty quickly, so I traced her shoe on the brown one and cut out beaks from the orange one. From the red piece, I decided to cut out snoods (the red thing that hangs off the beak) instead of wattles (the red part that hangs below the beak), but you could do either or both. I also got out some wiggle eyes I received free from CraftProjectIdeas.com.

I brought my daughter back to the craft table and put some glue on the back of her turkey body and she stuck it to the feathers. Then I put glue on the back of the beak and the snood and I was SHOCKED when she actually stuck the snood on top of the beak! She's a genius, I thought! Then I put glue on the backs of small wiggle eyes and she put one up top and one down low. OK, so maybe she's not a genius.  Again, I waited for it to dry, then cut out all the parts of the paper plate that weren't covered by feathers. And this is what we got:

She's so proud of it! Here's mine:

I still plan on making a peacock out of the blue boxes someday, but I'm pretty happy with how these little turkeys turned out!

Glue and Chalk Creations

I saw these really cool spider webs at Pink and Green Mama. They used glue to make their spider on black paper, then when it dried they colored with chalk and the spider stayed black. I loved it! I tried it with my class a few weeks ago. I wrote their names with glue on black construction paper. The next day the kids colored over it with chalk.

Then they took a small pom pom and traced over their name. This made their name more visible and was great fine motor practice!

We had tried wiping the whole thing with a tissue, like they did at Pink and Green Mama, but it took off too much chalk from the paper. The little pom pom worked great!

I also let them draw whatever they wanted with the glue.

A couple days later they colored over it with chalk and used the pom pom again.

They turned out great and looked so bright on our wall!

Yummy Haunted Houses

This is a quick post to show you the edible haunted houses my kids made today. Each child brought in something different to help decorate the houses. I bought little orange juice cartons and the kids drank them the day before. I rinsed them out and let them dry. Then I snipped off the very top and taped it closed. I put some frosting on the bottom of the carton and stuck it on a plate. Then I used frosting to attach graham crackers to each side and two at the top for the roof. When they were all put together, the kids were able to decorate them however they wanted.

They each had a plastic knife and a paper towel (to wipe their fingers instead of licking them!). We had candy corn and pumpkins, colored chocolate chips, M&Ms, gummy worms, licorice, little Hershey bars, sprinkles and candy eyes. They all did such a good job! We had a few roof tops that started to slide off, but adding a bit more frosting seemed to do the trick.

They turned out great and the kids couldn't wait to take them home so they could eat them!

This one used Hershey bars to make a graveyard. So creative!

Happy Halloween!