Keepsake Baby's 1st Christmas Star

I collected the tags and scraps of the wrapping paper from the presents each of my children received on their first Christmases. From these I made keepsake Christmas stars that we put on our Christmas tree tops each year. One day my kids will take their own special stars and put them on their own Christmas trees when they are adults with their own homes. (I hope!) Here's how I did it.

I traced and cut out a *perfect* 5 point star out of heavy cardboard (matboard or heavy cardboard from the back of used up notepad will work. I've used both.). I was nitpicky the first star and then every star after that I traced from the original so that I am sure my third kid's star is a lot less perfect. (That's what happens, right?) But, if you want to have a guide or are a little bit of a perfectionist, use a protractor to make a pentagon (the base of your star) with interior angles of 108*. Then extend your lines beyond that until they meet to make your star's points. My stars have a pentagon base with each side being about 2.5" with the end result being a star that has a diameter (you know, if you stuck it in a circle.) of 10". (My high school math teacher sister is cringing I am sure.)

You could also do something like this and use it as a template for your cardboard.

Now, let's forget math because we don't need it any more. That's right, now it gets fun.

Rip and tear your wrapping paper so you have nice larger pieces and smaller pieces to collage on your star. Swab on some modpodge* put down some paper (using the bigger pieces first for a base) and swab over it. Wrap some around your edges and do both sides. It helps to focus on one side and then when that side is dry do the other side. Paste of sticker tags in the same manor.

Card tags, open and mod podge both sides and let dry. Then modpodge the back onto the star and glue over the right side of the interior (where people usually write) so that the flap can be opened later and the message read.

And that's it. Really simple and sweet.

Out of a heavy gauge wire I made a spiral in the shape of a cone that could fit over the top of a tree. At the top I twisted two loops between which would fit one of the angles of the star. Hope that makes sense.

*You can make your own modpodge with equal parts white glue and water. Shake them together in a jar with a screw top lid.

Gingerbread Play Dough

This is a recipe Griffin came home from school with and is a variation on good old salt dough. It smells delicious but probably doesn't taste so good! (Though it is edible, just in case your Octopus does eat it.)


Recipe:

Gingerbread Play Dough

• 2 cups flour
• 1 cup salt
• 1 tbsp. ground ginger
• 1 tbsp. ground cinnamon
• 2 tbsp. vegetable oil
• 1 cup water
• additional vegetable oil as needed to improve consistency.

Mix the ingredients together. Knead until the dough is smooth. Play.

"Stained Glass" Votive Holder

These votive candle holders are really easy and fun to make and really cheap, too. I like cheap. Plus, they can be as simple or as intense as you want to design them. With a 4 year old and a 2 year old we went simple. Just torn up scraps of tissue paper mod podged on. We even made our own mod podge. That too is cheap and easy. Nice.


What You Need:

• one Recipe Mod Podge (recipe at the end)
• one small, cleanjar (We used artichoke heart jars that are 6.5 oz)
• small (like 1-2"sq) torn pieces of tissue papers in various colors

Here's What You Do:

• Brush a bit of the mod podge onto the outside of the jar then put a piece of tissue on it. Smooth out the tissue with more mod podge. Thin layers is best.
  
• Do this all around.
• Let dry.
• Voila!
• Now put a votive candle or tea light in it and put it on display or gift.

***

Mod Podge Recipe:

• 1/4 cup Elmer's Glue
• 1/4 water

Stir together in jar until well mixed. For what it's worth, we also used an artichoke heart jar to mix and keep our mod podge in.

Magazine Cut-Out Ornaments

This is a really simple ornament that's great for preschoolers (and something I made myself when I was in preschool- and my mom still has it!). It is simply two pieces of paper glued together with a string for hanging sandwiched between. We found a couple wintery images in some of our old children's magazines and traced around them with a tupperware container and pencil to make a nice circle. Then we cut out the circles. We brushed glue on the back side of one paper then positioned a length of looped yarn on it so that the ends would be sandwiched between the two discs or paper with a loop to hang hanging out. Then we slapped on the other paper so the winter image faced out. Just make sure your the string is coming out the top and your pictures aren't upside down. That's it. Easy peasy.

Gingerbread Man Paper Chain

Remember making paper doll chains? Well, for the holiday season I made some "Gingerbread Man" chains out of brown paper to decorate our front door. Here's how you do it.

What You Need:

• brown paper, about a 5" wide strip cut off from a roll of brown packaging paper.
• scissors
• red and silver glitter glue
• black marker

What You Do:

• Accordion fold the strip of brown paper all the way from one end to the other making a fold every 2.75 inches or so.*
• On the front of your "book" draw your ginerbread man, making sure the arms reach all the way to the left and right edges.

• Cut him out, through all the layers. making sure NOT to cut out around the hands. Every other body part should be cut around.
• Open up your book. You should have a continuous chain of a dozen (or so) of gingerbread men.
• Decorate with glitter glue buttons and "icing" and black marker faces.
  
• Hang 'em up!

*Hint: If you cut your paper from a roll, you might want to weight and flatten your folded paper strip in a heavy book overnight before you cut your men so that they lie flat. Otherwise you can always tape them to your wall.

Cinnamon Applesauce Ornaments

These are a celebrated Christmas craft and you'll find recipes for these everywhere on the web. They'll vary a little bit but they're all basically the same thing: Applesauce and Cinnamon. Some recipes have white glue added for strength. We nitpicked through them and came up with this recipe which served us well and we got a dozen good-sized ornaments out of one batch.

Cinnamon Applesauce Dough:

• 1 1/4 cups ground cinnamon
• 1 cup applesauce
• 1/4 cup Elmer's glue

Mix it all up until it resembles a sticky cookie dough. It'll be too sticky to roll right now, so let it sit for a half hour to an hour until you can work with it. Then roll it out to a 1/2 inch thickness (or a little thinner) and use cookie cutters to cut shapes. Set the shapes on a cookie sheet.

To make the holes, take a straw and stick one end through the "cookie" where you want the hole. Lift it out and the little hole should come with it. Blow the hole out.

Now you can dry these in a corner. They take a couple days to dry. I'm impatient. You know that. I baked mine. Set the oven to 200 degrees and bake for 2-2.5 hours until dry, flipping the ornaments half-way through. Even so I let them dry out more overnight before the kids decorated them with glitter glue.

Decorate, hang with a ribbon. Fun and done!

Easy enough for little hands and they make great home-made gifts. They just make your whole house smell of Christmas cheer.

Print and Cut: Paper Trees

These are super easy and fun to make and decorate. If we had time and space, we would make a whole forest of paper trees. They're also nicely collapsible so stick some in some Christmas cards! Or glue one onto a card to make one into a Christmas card:



You can make all sorts of sizes for your forest, but here are some templates for a starting place. For a larger 10" tree print up these two pages onto card stock.

page 1:

page 2:

Cut out, decorate and put together. It's easier to stand them up if you fold each half of the tree down the middle length-wise before fitting the slits together. And taping them on the resulting seams is not a bad idea either.

For a smaller 7" tree, print this up on card stock:

Coloring Pages: Dinosaur Christmas

Coffee Filter Snowflakes

Here's a twist on paper snowflakes (and maybe easier).



If you drink coffee, you probably have a coffee maker, and if you have a coffee maker you probably have basket filters hanging out in your cabinet. If you have a Kuerig or Krups, well, lucky you (I'm jealous!), maybe you have a stack of old basket filters hanging around still from your old abandoned coffee maker. You can use them to cut out pretty nifty paper snowflakes.

It's a snowy day here today and so that's what we did. You fold them in half, you fold them again, then again, then again. And then you make tiny cuts n the edges and unfold and behold- SNOWFLAKES! Very fast, very easy, and very pretty. Now I have a couple of kids running around the house throwing snowflakes in the air. They'd rather play in paper than go out in the storm we're having!

I imagine you can do this with cupcake liners too!