I finally - with much lamenting and some late night work - got the crafts for J’s school’s Christmas bazaar finished. Just in time for the big day and, luckily, just in time for Antique Mommy’s Blog Carnival.

Now, getting these little people done was way more work than I had anticipated (hence the late night work) and getting all the necessary stuff was rather expensive. However, they did turn out quite nice:

The three kings

Sorry about the blurry picture of St. Nick - I had to take the photos at 6am, before sending them to school with J. as I just barely managed to finish them in time.

The pictures give a pretty clear idea of how to make these little people. Still, here the instructions for making the angel:

Things you Need (for one angel):

• A small flowerpot, approximately 1.5 inches
• One wooden bead each with a diameter of 4/5 inch and 1/2 inch
• Paints (red, gold, skin color)
• Stiff construction paper in dark red and skin color
• Very thin golden wire

And here is what you do:

1. Paint the flowerpot in red and let dry. Then use golden paint (or a golden pen) to draw on a design of your choice.
2. Paint the larger bead skin-colored and let dry. Use markers/pens to draw on a cheeky face (at least that is what I was trying to do)
3. Cut a pair of wings out of the red construction paper and decorate with your golden pen
4. Fold the golden wire so that you end up with a bushel (with a length of maybe 2.5 inches) and cut the top off so that it looks kind of like bristles on a broom.
5. Attach a piece of wire to the gold wire bushel and pull through the large bead. Pull the bushel at least partway into the bead (but make sure there is still enough “hair” sticking out at the top. Then pull the attached wire through the flowerpot opening from the top and then through the smaller bead (which serves to keep the angel from losing its head). Tie off.
6. Glue the wings on the back of the flowerpot. Maybe use your hot glue gun to attach the head of the angel more firmly (mine kept wobbling otherwise). If you want your angel to have hands (I ran out of time, unfortunately), cut them out of construction paper and glue on.

Now, these instructions read kind of complicated but it is actually a fairly easy craft (though the kings were quite time-consuming). These little angels would make great ornaments or nice little extra-gifts to be put onto a bigger present for decoration.

Of course, you are free to adjust the instructions according to your own taste. You can use the colors, fabrics, threads etc. that you like (I wasn’t quite so lucky as I felt rather bound by the instructions that were supplied) and/or have at hand. Also, these little flowerpot people could be a fun project to do with (slightly older) kids.

Christmas is really coming close now. I can’t believe St. Martin’s (November 11 th) is right around the corner. High time to start making our St. Martin’s lanterns for this year.
One of the nicest traditions here is the annual St. Martin’s parade that takes place right around the Saint’s special day. Usually organized by nursery schools or churches, the observance consists of some sort of family service (with the story of the Saint), followed by a lantern-lit parade through the dark neighborhood and often concludes with some sort of snack/treat.
I guess you could reuse your lantern year after year (if you don’t have a couple of boys who are likely to destroy it the first time around and if you can find it again next year). However, here most preschools/playgroups make one every year. My boys’ preschool never makes St. Martin lanterns. That’s just fine with me as making the lantern is a great activity for Family Moment Monday.

This year J. decided he wanted a Star Lantern. Instead of getting instructions and following a template we just came up with our own version:

All you need to make one of these is some stiff posterboard, transparent paper in various colors, and one of the round cardboard thingies you see in the pictures below.
And here are the instructions:

Cut out two star shapes from the posterboard big enough to cover the round paper thingies. J. was a bit impatient so his stars are a bit small - doesn’t really matter though.

Cut holes into the star shapes.

Cover the holes with transparent paper. Cut a hole in the bottom cardboard circle so that you basically end up with two “rims”. Cut a long piece of cardboard (about 2 to 3 inches wide).

Glue one star on each rim. Use a glue gun to attach the length of cardboard to the two rims (I know, I know - you have no idea what I mean by that. That’s why I have added in the pictures. Take a look at the finished lantern and you’ll see what I am talking about). Make sure to leave a space to put the light through.

And there you go, one cool St. Martin lantern. I will post later this week about our St. Martin’s celebration on Tuesday and the lantern walk which is scheduled for next Sunday.

Well, it is almost Saturday. The other day I designated Saturday as my official Christmas-Topic-Post-Day. You may remember that I picked Saturday arbitrarily, and I have to say that right about now I wish I had chosen a different day, any other day. I may have mentioned before that I have a slight (yeah, right) tendency to procrastinate. In any case, Saturday is about here. Not only have I not yet written a Christmas post, but I am also short on a good idea for one right now let alone time to research it.
Still, I do want to stick to my plans at least for a bit (and after all this is the FIRST week so how inefficient would it be to miss it already), so I decided to at least share a neat website for kids with you that I discovered the other day. Seussville offers a bunch of games, coloring pages, crafts and activities connected to the various Dr. Seuss books. What does that have to do with Christmas, you wonder? Well, they have some pages about How the Grinch stole Christmas which J. really loved. He especially enjoyed coloring in the Grinch and Whoville Christmas ornaments.

Actually, he was so prolific (going through four or five copies of the ornaments) that I fear we will need a second Christmas tree just for the kids’ ornaments if he keeps this up. I am generally not a great fan of coloring activities, but J. enjoyed it and there were some other fun activities at the website. And let’s face it, as the holiday season approaches and we get busier and busier any fun and creative activity that will keep the kids occupied for a while is welcome.

Yep, you didn’t make a mistake reading the title of this post. Nor is this one of those tricky titles that lead you to expect one thing while the post is really about something completely different. We actually made Christmas ornaments in August. Not only that, but the boys and I had a great time doing it - with Christmas Carols from the tape player, no less.

The ornaments we made

Now if you can not stand the idea of making Christmas ornaments before the end of October, don’t despair. Just come back here (which is exactly what I would like you to do anyway) then and reread this post.

In any case, here the instructions for what we did.

Cinnamon Dough Ornaments

1. Mix together 1 cup cinnamon (yep, a whole cup - we actually bought a full pack for it), 2/3 cups of applesauce and a scant 1/4 cups of white glue (you guessed it, these can not be eaten).
2. Let sit for 30 minutes
3. Roll out like cookie batter (about 1/4 inch thick) and use your favorite cookie cutters to cut out the ornaments.



4. Poke holes through which you will later thread the string for hanging up the ornaments.
5. Let the cookies dry for about three days, turning frequently so the ornaments don't get warped.

I have to say, making these ornaments was a great success (other than the fit the boys threw because there wasn't enough dough to make all the ornaments they wanted to).

Great fun!

Due to the inedible nature of the dough, it might be a bit difficult to make these ornaments with very little kids who still put everything in their mouth. Otherwise, it is a very easy craft that even three-year olds can participate in fully (always an important consideration in our house). The best part in my opinion is the wonderful cinnamon smell permeating our home at the moment. It really smells quite Christmasy (if you can just ignore the fact that it is still August).

If you are one of the lucky moms whose children are busy playing all day without any interference from you, I envy you. At our house, these times are few and far between. Generally, my kids require my help in organizing their activities. Now, with the boys’ preschool closed for three weeks, my entertainment skills are once again called to the fore.

We usually try to work on a project or two during vacation times. The purpose of these projects isn’t so much to learn things (although of course that is a nice side effect) but mostly just to keep them happily entertained. This summer, we have decided to do an Africa project, and today we finally got started.

We own several picture books with an African theme, and today we kicked off our project by reading Anansi the Spider. It’s an Ashanti tale about the famous trickster, spider Anansi, and his family. Anansi gets into trouble (or what would you call getting swallowed by a fish?) and his five sons, each of which has a special skill, rush to his rescue. With its clear design, bold colors and unusual style, it is quite a departure from the majority of books. The boys liked it okay, but weren’t truly excited by it. I think the style might have been a bit too different for their taste. However, for an introduction to our project it served quite well.

Then we did a fun craft activity for an “African” wallhanging.
The instructions are fairly simple:

1. Cut a piece of burlap into an appropriate size, making sure that you cut off any selvage edges.
2. Choose threads to pull out on the sides and create spaces where only vertical threads remain (Sorry, I know that isn’t the best explanation. But take a look at the picture below and you’ll know what I mean)
3. Then use various pieces of colored yarn to knot bunches of threads together in those places where you removed the horizontal threads
4. When you are happy with the look - or tired of tying knots - attach the cloth to a rod (we just used a twig the boys had dragged home) with tape and tie on a longer piece of yarn to hang it up with

Here is what it looks like:

The wallhanging Benjamin made with some help from me

I liked this craft project for several reasons:

• You don’t need a lot of expensive/hard-to-get materials
• It is really easy. Even little ones can do it (though they may need help with the knotting), while older children can complete it with minimal help. Ben pulled out the strings himself and chose which color yarn to use.
• It’s a great outlet for all those kids that have just learned how to tie knots and are now tying little pieces of string all over the house

I got the idea for this wallhanging from a great book we have, Global Art by MaryAnn F. Kohl. We have several books by this author, and I use them often with the boys. I am not too crazy about cookie-cutter crafts and really appreciate the emphasis on experimentation and enjoyment of the process instead of on the finished product. Ms. Kohl’s ideas really fit with my parenting philosophy.