Busy Weekend Slow Down

Well this was going to be our busy weekend this season besides of course Christmas weekend. Yesterday morning started with a breakfast with Santa Claus at my church. I was helping organize and run it, so I went early and Steve brought Hazel later. Hazel is afraid of Santa so she didn't want to go near him, but she loved the crafts and shopping part of it. She got tired and Steve brought her home early though she did not nap for him. Yesterday late afternoon we took Hazel to her grandmother's so Steve and I could go to her school for The Shepherd's Play. We, of course, had no idea what The Shepherd's Play was and hadn't heard of it before, but we knew it was a nativity play put on by the teachers and parents of the school. It is a play that is traditionally performed at Waldorf Schools. They have two showings at Cape Ann Waldorf School. It is a heartwarming and humorous version of the Christmas story. The second showing they also perform The Paradise Play. We will save that for another year to see. Next year we will bring Hazel to The Shepherd's Play.

We went to pick up Hazel and she had been telling her grandmother that her mouth hurt. Hmmm....interesting. We took the scenic way home to see some Christmas lights and pick up some take out for dinner for me and Steve. Since Hazel had not napped she was tired and we knew she would fall asleep in the car. I noticed while Steve was getting dinner that her nose was a bit runny, but nothing to worry about. After all she is really tired. We got her to bed and ate dinner. This morning our plan was church for Hazel and I while Steve went to the gym and then a Christmas party in the afternoon. Unfortunately this morning it was very obvious that Hazel was not feeling well. Her nose is very runny and she complained about her mouth to both of us (which I realized was probably her throat) and she feels warm. So we put a stop to our plans for the day. I still went to church and Steve is going to the gym now that Hazel is napping and I'm home. However Hazel is staying home and hopefully getting better.

But I wanted to share a few crafts with you. Hazel has been working on these pine cone Christmas trees for awhile. I got the idea from a book, but have since seen it on line as well. I spray painted them green and a bit gold and then we put them in pots. She has been decorating by gluing things on and with glitter glue. We were suppose to paint the pots as well, but I'm liking them plain so they don't take away from the trees. These are the first ones I have declared to be done. She still has a few more to finish. I have to keep turning them for her so she gets all sides.

She also made some crafts at the Breakfast with Santa. She only did two of the four crafts, but she made a Rudolph ornament and a Christmas tree. Now I'm off to rest and work on some Christmas gifts for her teachers. I hope you are enjoying your weekend!

Rudolph

Stained glass tree from Oriental Trading

Sharing Saturday #9

Wow, what wonderful ideas were shared last week. It looks like so many people are doing such fun things with their children. I love it!! Here is a recap of a few of the more popular ones.

Christmas cards and Christmas gifts

Last night I stayed up late to finish a no sew fleece blanket for my mother-in-law. My mother had bought the fleece because her Crafty Chicks group was making the no-sew fleece blankets. (Members take turns teaching a craft and give a supply list ahead of time.) Well after picking the fabrics she found or I found I guess, the perfect fabric for a friend's baby shower so my mother made that one at the group and decided she didn't want to make another one. She gave me the fleece to figure out something to do with it.

It has a similar green as my mother-in-law's living room, so I asked my husband to show it to her and see if she would like me to make her a blanket. She did, so great one of the harder people to get gifts for is off our list. Well then I had to make it. Lately I've seen on Pinterest the braided look instead of tied. And then I saw on one of my favorite blogs Helping Little Hands, a wonderful tutorial to make a double layered no-sew braided fleece blanket. It was so easy (once you get through all the cutting and prep work). I used the paper clip as my tool instead of looking for a big enough crochet hook. It worked perfectly. Now I have one gift down! I'm only making two more and then I can get making things for Hazel's birthday party. I want to knit some owls for Hazel's teacher and teacher's assistant (plus I promised Hazel I would make her some). And I want to knit a gift for my mother's birthday, but that is in January, so I can put it off for a bit longer.

This week I also finished our Christmas cards. After printing out 100 of them (yes I print them myself) I realized our overly Christian cards were not appropriate to mail to our handful of Jewish friends, so I revised it for them. Do you do that? Or am I the only crazy one?

Hazel and I started on a craft this morning but then we had to run to church to help get ready for the Breakfast with Santa tomorrow. She fell asleep when we went out to run errands, but I woke her and now of course she won't go back to sleep. Ugh!! Why did I wake her?

Oh, well. Remember to stop by later for Sharing Saturday! Have a wonderful weekend!

Busy Thursday

Today we have school and it is a special day for us, because Steve is going with us. He always takes a Thursday off in December and today is the day. Since he has never been to the actual class, it is the perfect opportunity to do so. I'm also working later, so we will probably not have much time to craft today. I will share a craft we did awhile ago. They have been hanging in my front window along with  the window candles.

Toddler "Gingerbread" House

This morning (before I went to the dentist) Hazel and I made a "gingerbread" house out of graham crackers. I learned this technique from a friend who is a preschool teacher. What you need is an empty and cleaned milk carton--cup or pint size work best for toddlers, graham crackers, frosting, and candy or things to decorate with.

The milk carton is the form of the house and gives it stability. You put frosting right on it and stick the graham crackers on it. Hazel loved putting the frosting on the milk carton.

Once you have the graham crackers (you may need to help with the roof and the triangular shape up to the roof--I just broke the corners and hid any holes with frosting), you spread frosting on it to decorate. We started with the roof. hazel loved putting the candies on. Since M&M's are her favorite she kept telling me she wanted to save them to eat later.

Then we decided the lollipops could be people, so we put them on the front of the house and one on the back. Hazel tried to use the flavors she doesn't like very much for the house.

We spent about 30-45 minutes doing this. It was a lot of fun. We bought a kit to do a gingerbread train. We'll see how it turns out.

Have a sweet day!!

St. Nicholas Day

Today is when Hazel's school celebrates St. Nicholas Day. This is a holiday that is not traditionally celebrated in the United States, so I had not heard of it. However, in her advent calendar she got a needle felted St. Nicholas (I made it last night). I did some research and the best site for information on St. Nicholas including free stories--printable or on-line-- is St. Nicholas Center.

We read a story about The Real Santa Claus after opening  the advent calendar. She then started to color one of the print-outs from the website, but got distracted.

Before her nap, she sat on my lap while I read to her several of the stories on-line. Many are like books on-line. She fell asleep in my arms. The free stories can be found here.

This website also offers crafts and activities. Printable ones are found here.

They also have suggestions to celebrate on your own. The idea I liked most was leaving a gift of food at a neighbors with a card about St. Nicholas (printable). If we have time to bake some banana bread after Hazel's nap we may try this. Run a loaf with a card attached to a porch, ring the bell and run.

I'm hoping by celebrating the different saint days with Hazel that the Waldorf School does, she will get a better understanding of each of them. I know Steve loves this part of her education, being the one who is Catholic in the family.

So Happy St. Nicholas Day! I hope you find a way to spread some love and goodwill to all.

Snow and Winter Fairies

Today it snowed...well not outside, but in my kitchen. We have been reading many books about snow lately and Hazel has been asking to make a snowman, a snow fort and tracks in the snow like the characters in her books. So this morning we took the idea from Rachel over at I HEART CRAFTY THINGS and used the recipe (and mix technique) from The Magic Onions. So while Hazel mixed the dry ingredients it snowed. (And trust me, it snowed in our kitchen--I needed the broom to clean it up.)

Then I added the oil and hot water and mixed. Then as it cooled I put a small amount in a different bowl for Hazel to knead and I kneaded the rest. We added white glitter as we kneaded to make it sparkle like snow.

Then I rolled it out for her and we used her toys to make tracks. We used a Barbie doll for footsteps, her various animals for animal tracks, a car and tractor for different tracks and then we pulled out her various texture tools for play dough. Then she wanted to make footprints in it so we re-rolled it and she stepped on it. Then we flipped it over and she made handprints. Then we took some of the rest and made snowmen. It took some creativity to dress them. My idea of paper hats, didn't work well. I went to look for new ideas and came up with beads. Luckily we had orange ones that somewhat looked like carrots for the noses. I used a pink baby sock with the toe cut off for Hazel's hat and some ribbon for scarves. You can see some of the sparkle in the picture of Hazel's.

Hazel's Snowman

My Snowman

My plan for today's post was to show you the toddler form of bendy dolls we came up with. Hazel had trouble wrapping the pipe cleaners well so I wanted to find something easier for her. We decided to make poinsettia fairies.

These are pretty easy. You need a pipe cleaner, medium to large wooden beads (2), small wooden beads, a fake poinsettia, embroidery floss (yellow), and tulle for the wings.

Cut the pipe cleaner into two pieces--one should be 1/3 of the entire and will be the arms.

Take the longer piece and fold in half. Stick both ends into your head bead (medium or large).

Wrap the floss around your and many times and then cut. Stick the entire looped floss into the loop of the pipe cleaner on top of the bead and pull the pipe cleaner tightly through the bead to hold the floss in place.

Take smaller pipe cleaner and twist under the head to make the arms and hold everything in place.

Next add a poinsettia flower (take the flower apart and use just the petals). Then the second medium or large bead. Put small beads on the legs and arms for more stability.

I used a slightly larger bead at the feet for the feet or shoes. I folded the ends up, but also used a little glue on it since my ends were not really long enough.

Then cut loops out of the hair so it is stringy. Take a piece of tulle and gather in the center. (I folded the ends in to the center so there would not be rough edges.) I used yarn to gather and on one I left the ends and tied it on and found this works best. On the other I used glue after cutting the ends.

I used some leaves for wings in this one.

I also made a few other winter fairies which I stuck in her advent calendar since I'm behind in my needle felting of nativity figures.

Mistletoe and Holly Berry Fairies

Snow Princess and Pine cone Fairy

Hope you are having a wonderful evening! Tonight I'm planning on needle felting a St. Nicholas for Hazel's advent calendar since tomorrow is St. Nicholas Feast Day. I have many stories and crafts to do with her in celebration.

More Salt Dough Ornaments

We had a busy Saturday doing lots of fun things. We started with a small craft that I will share tomorrow. Then Hazel and I went to our church for a gingerbread man decorating fundraiser. Hazel had so much fun decorating them. I let her do two. We came home and had some lunch and of course no nap, and she and Mommy and Daddy really needed one, but when Daddy is home we often do not take one.

Then we made some salt dough ornaments. I used a different recipe this time. I wanted to make them like a play dough at first after seeing the post at The Magic Onions. I loved her idea of decorating them with glitter and just have it colored. I got to thinking if the cream of tartar makes the play dough last longer, does it need to be there. I did some research on line and then remembered I had a book, The Arts and Crafts Busy Book: 365 Art and Craft Activities to Keep Toddlers and Preschoolers Busy by Trish Kuffner, with an appendix full of such recipes. I was going to make a no-bake craft clay with cornstarch and baking soda, however to color it you added the food coloring in the beginning. Since I wanted to make two colors this wouldn't work. So I went with the Salt Clay recipe which is the same recipe you see everywhere. I used the method of mixing the dry ingredients that The Magic Onions suggested--the snow method. Hazel loved it!! Then we added the water and still mixed with our hands. At first Hazel didn't like it sticking to her hands but after I did it some she wanted to try some more. I thought I had added too much water at one point but kept kneading it and it became the perfect consistency. We divided it up into two parts and mixed in red in one and green in the other. 

The first rolling, after I got it pretty flat, we used one of Hazel's textured rollers to give stars on our ornaments. Then we cut them out. Used a straw to punch a hole in it and added some glitter.

The next ones we did not give texture by a rolling pin, but used some rubber stamps after we cut them out.  Overall, I love how they came out. We of course added some more glitter to the stamped ones as well and then we baked them for several hours.

Sharing Saturday #8

We had a less than average active Sharing Saturday. I'm guessing it was due to Thanksgiving and the fact that I was sick so I wasn't inviting people as much. I'm hoping the numbers pick up this week. Here are some of the most popular and my favorite:

You've Got Mail... from Santa

As I posted before, instead of buying a creepy Elf on a Shelf (and I do think they are a bit creepy), I spent a few dollars at Ocean State Job Lot and got a Santa mailbox (gift box, but we are using it as a mailbox). So I'm taking advantage of my alone time to write a letter to Hazel from Santa.

I put it in an envelope and used a calligraphy pen to write Hazel on it. Then sealed it up and stuck it in the mailbox. When Hazel gets home today I will tell her about the mailbox and to look inside. This is going to be her way of communicating with Santa and she will know that we can as well. I love this idea instead of having a little elf spy on your child and having to worry about where to move it to.

In case you want to try something similar here are a few different backgrounds for Santa letters. I did these in Print Shop and did her original letter in it as well.

Stocking                                               Christmas Tree

Gingerbread Man                                  Sleigh Bells