Skip to main content

Christmas Crafts

I thought I would share a little more in detail about the ornaments the kiddos and I made this year for our family exchange.


First, the glass balls:

This is what the set we painted looked like. You can buy them in all sizes though, from very small to very large.
Here's the kiddos squirting the acrylic paint into the balls. And these next ones are them swirling the paint around.We left them sitting for several days with the tops off so they could dry completely. If you're doing these as a party activity or something similar you can take/send them home with the tops on and just remove them afterwards to finish letting them dry.
We ran out of red & white paint (or should I say the kiddos got a little squirt-happy on one of the balls?), so we used some random colors of paint that I already had to do the last one. That one is for Mama (me!).
We added some pretty ribbons to the tops and they looked so shiny and festive!


Next are those adorable little houses:
This is what they look like at the store~just simple paper houses. Hobby Lobby has tons of cute paper decorations to be painted!


I used these tempera paints and just mixed them to get different colors. I'm no expert on paints, I just looked for something inexpensive that was for paper products. The houses do require several coats, but this paints dries very fast. By the time you have finish one the other is dry and ready for the next coat. Then when you're finished with all of the painting, just add your *snow* glitter to the tops and bases and glue on a miniature wreath if you like.

These are the two I gave to my mom and sister. I painted a third to go with The Princess' village that I made last year. I'll be getting all of those out this week and will post a picture of them all together.
Labels:

Comments

Lisa said…
Your crafts are so cute and look like they were a lot of fun to make.

I'm glad to hear that you had a good Thanksgiving ~ and that you got to see the snow! It made me happy just to watch it fall. I'm hoping that is just the first of many snows this year :-)
December 2, 2008 at 8:07 AM
Kari said…
They're all so cute! I'm sure the kids had a blast painting the glass ones. =)
December 2, 2008 at 1:35 PM
Shannon said…
Those turned out so cute!
December 2, 2008 at 2:35 PM
Nana Trish is Living the Dream said…
These look like such neat activities. I can't wait to make these with Avery. She will love them. The little houses are so adorable.
December 2, 2008 at 8:56 PM
Unknown said…
Aren't Christmas crafts so much fun?! It looks like you've been busy and your ornaments and houses turned out so cute!
~Kelli
P.s. Here is the link for the ribs: http://heritageschoolhouse.blogspot.com/2008/07/oven-baked-country-ribs-4-servings-1.html

I have made them many times; they are delicious!
December 2, 2008 at 9:25 PM
steviewren said…
The ornaments that you and the kids made are so cute. They will have such happy memories of making decorations together.

Later this month I will be posting how to make easy gingerbread houses from graham crackers. My kids are coming Sunday with the grandkiddies for our annual house making day. It is great fun.
December 2, 2008 at 10:05 PM
Nancy said…
What fun activities! I'll have to give the painting balls a try...Little Miss LOVES to paint. Of course, we'll have to do it out of reach of Little Man...he would LOVE to get his hands on those!

We have not decorated for Christmas yet. I'm a little less enthusiastic about it this year. We sold a lot of our decorations (including our tree--a small tree I bought when I first bought my house) thinking we would be in a bigger house this Christmas and would get a bigger tree and new decorations. (Of course, I kept all my sentimental decor.) I think we're going with a real tree this year, so we'll probably do that this weekend, and i'm sure I'll be in the mood as soon as we get it in the living room!

I can't wait to see some of your decorating ideas!
December 2, 2008 at 11:03 PM
Michelle M. said…
I love those ornaments!! I am going to have to try those if we have a chance this year.
December 3, 2008 at 3:15 PM
Lorie said…
How fun! I have seen those ornaments on a few blogs and keep meaning to buy some ornaments! It looks like fun!
December 3, 2008 at 6:19 PM
Mrs. H. said…
Lora,
Those ornaments are so beautiful. I hope to try to make some this year - thanks so much for the instructions! :-)
December 5, 2008 at 10:37 PM
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Reading Game: A Review

I was excited to receive this review product recently, thinking my 1st-grade-son could really benefit and enjoy it a lot. And I was right! He is having so much fun with this game. The Reading Game is a fast-paced memory card game using words. The game comes with 6 sets of memory cards with 6 corresponding readers. The idea is for you and your student to play memory with each set of cards (playing 6 rounds with each set), after every 2 rounds your student then reads 2 test sentences to see how he is retaining the new words he is learning. After the whole set has been played, he is then ready to read the corresponding reader...and has learned 30 new words! By the time your student has played every set of cards and read every reader, he will have learned 180 words. Of the 25 most common English words, 23 are on that list; of the 50 most common words, 42 are on that list. So this little game of reading really does prepare your student well. The readers are illustrated with cute
Post a Comment
Read more

The Making of an Egyptian Death Mask

We are learning all about the ancient world this year with Story of the World I and loving it! We've been learning a lot about Egypt, of course, which is completely fascinating. Most recently we have studied the New Kingdom of Egypt, which includes the story of King Tut. So we decided making an Egyptian death mask in the style of King Tut's would be a fun project. First since it was too cold at the time to paper mache in the garage (it probably would have frozen instead of dried-ha) and it was too messy to do it in the house, we decided to pick up a couple of cheap craft masks at Hobby Lobby. Next we cut out cardboard shapes to complete the shape of the death mask, attaching them with hot glue. Vince even put a little detail on the *beard* with the hot glue per The Princess' request. Then the kiddos started to paint them with this metallic gold tempera paint. It worked okay for the cardboard, but would not coat the plastic of the mask. We thought maybe a second coat
23 comments
Read more

Door Hanger Chore Charts

My kids have had a chore chart for a while.  It's one of those magnetic boards and they share it.  However, it's not by their rooms and often they (and I) forget to update it.  Plus it's a little bulky.   When I saw the concept of a door hanger chore chart on Pinterest, I loved it!  It was compact, right there were the kiddos could see it coming out and going into their rooms, and it costs almost nothing to make.   I headed over to one of my favorite stores: Hobby Lobby, of course.  They  have these little wooden door hangers for .79.  I also grabbed a couple of packets of decorative buttons for $1.99 each.  I already had the clothes pins and the paint so those cost me nothing.   I began by painting the door hangers (I used tempera paints because that's what I had).  Then I grabbed a fine point Sharpie and the clothes pins and started writing chores on them, making sure to write them correctly so they will clip on the right direction.   The left
17 comments
Read more