One Crafty Christmas

We love Christmas in a big way at our house, in case you haven't noticed from my past few posts. I wanted to encourage our kids to think of others, mainly their siblings in a loving way, so I thought we might try to craft something for each other. My kids are pretty thoughtful and generous, but I thought they would enjoy the one on one craft time with mom too.

Of course, thanks to my addiction to Pinterest and a fully stocked craft garage, I had no trouble coming up with fun ideas that they could make for each other. Now, of course, that doesn't mean that we pulled off the whole operation seamlessly, because if I'm involved there are going to be a few mishaps and a lot of mess, but that's part of the memory right.

To start, Adlerson and I made giant melted crayons to share with the other kids, and he got to keep a few himself too. In my years of working at schools and helping in Sunday School, I've noticed that the instant you hand a kid a crayon, they want to peel off the paper. I don't know why this is, but it seems to be. However, once you hand a kid a whole handful of crayons to peel, they no longer seem able. Ironic, isn't it? Together Adlerson and I managed to get all the crayons peeled, eventually.
I had this great idea to place the broken pieces in a really fun star shaped ice cube tray and microwave it to melt the crayons down into star shapes. Like some of my great ideas of the past,it flopped. The ice cube tray melted and crayon dripped all over the microwave and the counter. We ended up going with the muffin trays and cupcake liners, and we hardly ever find drips of crayon anymore, several weeks later.

Of course, Gabriella had to get into the fun. Since she is such a talented baby, she only needed a bit of help to make little Rudolph ornaments with her footprint, and the kids will enjoy their ornaments on their trees.

Peterson and I made soap. This was probably our easiest project. All you have to do is melt, add scent and pour. The best part is that clean up is a breeze, since you just run you pan under the water until the remaining soap residue rinses away, and your done. It really is a great excuse to play in the soap and water, and Peterson didn't mind a bit.

On Monday, Aurrora and I made sidewalk chalk together. This was the toughest project, but it was handy that I saved it for her. We choked and gasped as Plaster of Paris dust billowed into the air. Once it was mixed up, we quickly spooned it into the tubs with tempera paint to color it. Then it was time to spoon it into toilet paper tubes lined with wax paper. They turned out well, and after some intense scraping, our tubs and bowl are almost back to normal. I don't know if our sink drain will ever be the same, but that's why they make Draino, right??

Anyways, it was alot of fun crafting with the kiddos, and its so cute to see how they are ready to burst trying to hold their secret in. This may become a new tradition for us.