Crafting with kids: Christmas cards and gifts

Your family and friends are sure to love the personal touch of receiving Christmas cards and gifts crafted by the kids, so why not start some projects now and get prepared for the festive season? It’s a great way to save money, and to get the whole family into the festive spirit.

Here are our top ideas for Christmas cards, gifts and wrap, so you can create the whole package.

1. Printed Christmas Cards

Christmas cards can be extremely expensive, but you and the kids can create fantastic cards the family will love using just your computer and printer.

Simply use a programme such as Microsoft Paint or Publisher and let the kids go wild with drawings, clip art and messages. You could even use your Christmas photos as part of your design. Let the kids use their imagination, and simply press print for a truly unique greetings card.

For professional results, purchase high-quality ink - CartridgeDiscount has low prices and free UK delivery to save you money, as well as card blanks and envelopes from your local craft store. Plain white designs are easiest to print on.

2. Christmas Wrap

You and your family can make personalised Christmas wrap by purchasing a roll of parcel paper and adding decorations. A quick, easy and effective option is stamping: create potato stamps, get the kids to finger-paint designs or purchase a pre-made stamp – NotOn The High Street has a great selection. Make sure to decorate a tag in the same way.

3. Homemade gifts                                                        

Home-baked treats are a fantastic option when it comes to creating gifts with the kids – fun to make and to eat, it’s something everyone will enjoy. The options are almost endless: you can ice cupcakes with festive designs, create gingerbread men, decorate cakes and more. Find inspiration and recipes at BBC GoodFood.                                      

Other inexpensive and easy options that are sure to bring a smile to loved ones’ faces are decorated photo frames featuring a photo of the family, diaries with kids’ drawings interspersed throughout, or painted mugs. Check out the kids’ Christmas craft kits available at Hobbycraft for more ideas.                                         

                                                                                                                               

                                                               

                                                               

                                                               

                                                               

                                                               

                                                                                                               

The Importance of using Cartons

I have been teaching Noah about the environment. I think that it is important for him to know about how we have to protect our planet.  He has learned this at a young age. When he was five, he saw the palm trees being trimmed. He was very concerned. He decided to march around yelling “Save our Trees, Save our Trees.” He wasn’t accustomed to the fact that palm trees have to be trimmed for not only esthetic reasons, but for safety reasons.  I explained that they aren’t cutting them down; they are just helping them be safe.  I think when I read The Lorax to him; he really listened, even if he thought they were monkeys.  Recently, we were talking about rules, and he said, “You don’t have rules.” I explained that I do, I can’t litter. He told me I didn’t need a rule for that.  He knew that’s common sense.  I think I am doing a great job teaching him about saving the earth. We went to Boyd Hill Nature Preserve for Earth Day, and I know that the older adults were impressed to see a six year old know the answers to all their questions and could identify what trash items could confuse animals.  Noah is such a fantastic child.  We are an eco-aware family.

Noah loves to drink milk and juice. I have decided to switch from milk jugs to milk cartons, because not only does it keep the milk fresher, it also is better for the environment.  Milk jugs use a lot of plastic, and since cartons are cardboard they are easier to recycle.  Cartons are recyclable for more than 49 million U.S. households. Recycled cartons are used to make other paper products, including tissue, office paper and building materials. I prefer juices that come from cartons vs. concentrate.   I think there are better flavor options. When I use chicken broth I always buy the cartons because it’s more convenient and you don’t need a can opener.  You can also make really cute crafts out of milk cartons. I remember when I was in Brownies making a bird feeder out of a milk carton.  I would love to make all kinds of crafts out of milk cartons. I think that Noah would reuse anything he could.  Noah loves to plant things too.  We could use milk or juice cartons as planters.  I am sure that my adorable son would find a way to make something Star Wars out of a carton or maybe that he calls a Minecraft Craft.  Making this change will be awesome for the planet and an excuse to get out the craft supplies, not that we need one.

Do you drink milk and juice from cartons?

Kids Shell Collection Craft

Most kids love shells. I know Noah thinks they are the coolest thing ever. He loves going on mud walks with my mom and finding shells anywhere he can.  We have a million of them.  My mom has been collecting them for years and years.  We went to the Saint Petersburg Shell Show today, it was a lot of fun and they had an absolutely brilliant craft idea that I had to share with you guys.   Most kids don’t really know the difference between the different shells. There are hundreds maybe thousands of different types of shells.  Instead of gluing shell bits on paper, or whatever easy craft they could have provided for kids, they decided to do something different.  They obviously put a lot of time and work in to the craft provided. They also offered a couple coloring sheets for those who weren’t interested in the main craft, but Noah was thrilled. He was so excited, it was so cool to see how shell smart he is.

This craft would be perfect for kids that just got home from the beach with a bunch of shells.

Kid’s Shell Collection

Supplies:

Shells you found at the beach- Different types

A clean egg carton

6 cotton balls

Two pieces of construction paper

School Glue

Thin Labels

Shell identifying book or the internet

Directions:

Cut out two shapes that will fit the outside and inside lid of the egg carton, make sure you cut a hole for the ridge of the inside of the egg carton lid. On the piece of paper with the hole draw 12 boxes.

Glue the pieces of construction paper to the top of the lid and the inside of the lid.

Take the 6 cotton balls and rip them in half so you have 12 cotton ball pieces

Put a small dab of glue in each egg spot and press in a cotton ball

Choose your shells and identify them

Write the name of the shell on the label and put it in the corresponding hole.  Place the label on the inside lid of the egg carton and Voila you have your very own shell collection.

How cool is that? Noah loved it.  I am sure if you have a shell you can’t identify you can email me and Noah and I can figure it out for you.

A special thanks to the St. Pete Shell Club for sharing this craft idea with us, and of course making my son’s week for loving shells as much as he does.

Noah's Easter Calendar

Every December I get an advent calendar. I love advent calendar chocolate. Noah gets one each year too to count down the days till Christmas. This past Christmas was the first year he was really excited about it. He would love to open a window and count down the days till Christmas. He is really big on counting down to things. He says how many more sunrises until whatever it is he is looking forward to. He normally will say is it one more sunrise? Usually it is a lot more, but he knows that each day it gets closer to what it is.

He decided he wanted an Easter Calendar, like an advent calendar. Since I have never seen an Easter calendar, we decided to make one. I took a 12 by 12 piece of cardstock and took a ruler and made the right number of boxes. The idea was to either color or put a sticker in the box each day to count down. I even numbered the boxes backwards. Noah wanted me to change the way I made the twos because I made them with the loop in them. Instead of confusing him, I erased the twos and redid them for him.

When we were done, I went to look for stickers so he could mark off the first day, I left his Easter calendar on the fridge with magnets. I couldn’t find any stickers that were small enough. I probably could have looked harder. I know there are probably some somewhere but not where I was looking. I came down stairs and the first thing I noticed was Noah’s Easter Calendar was not where I left it. I asked him where it was because he wasn’t carrying it around. He showed it to me and there was little cars, trucks, and blimps and airplanes in some of the boxes. I let him finish the boxes. I am not sure how we will count down the days now. I thought maybe with a x, but I don’t want to ruin his chart and that might hurt Noah’s feelings. He is an amazing artist and I want to encourage his creativity as much as I can.

We never ended up using it. I didn't wanna mess up his creation. We had so much fun doing it though. I don't know where he comes up with these things.

How to Alter a Tin

Thanks to Scotch(R) Double Sided Tape for sponsoring my writing about crafts. Add your comment below to be entered for a chance to win free sample rolls to help with your upcoming holiday needs.

I really enjoy doing crafts. I have found that double sided tape works really well when you are taping pictures on scrapbooking pages. As someone who has broken every tape runner she has owned, I think that double sided tape works really well. You don’t have the extra bulk of using normal tape in a loop. In my opinion unless you are using something to purposely make the picture pop out it should be flat.
I wanted to share a quick and easy craft with you. I thought I would show you an easy way to alter a tin. Maybe it is an old holiday cookie tin or popcorn tin or a coffee tin, almost any tin will work. I bought some little tins that I keep some of my crafting supplies in.



You need:
2 pieces of Patterned Paper (same print)
Double sided tape
Any sized tin
Scissors
Ruler

First take your paper and wrap it around the tin. Make a mark on your patterned paper on the white side at where the groove at the top. This is so you can put the lid on your tin. Take a ruler and make a line horizontal and cut across. You might need another piece of paper to cover the rest of your tin depending on the size. Remember to keep the lip of the tin exposed because it will not matter once the lid is on.

Carefully put double sided tape on the paper and line it up around the tin. I find that it works better if you stick the paper in the metal rim at the bottom. It not only looks cleaner but it helps it stay. If you need to cover more of the tin, just cut out a strip of paper to fit the area and tape. It can be the back of the tin.

Trace the top of the tin’s lid and cut it out. You will also need a thin strip of paper to go around the bottom of the lid. Tape the paper to the lid.
You can decorate any way you would like.

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I was selected for this sponsorship by the Clever Girls Collective, which endorses Blog With Integrity, as I do.

I have a giveaway for you.

Ten (10) Winners will each win a roll of Scotch Double Sided Tape.

Main Entry: Tell me what you think of my craft idea

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Sprout For Parents!

I wanted to share with you guys an article I wrote for Sprout for Parents. Sprout For Parents is the parent’s website for PBS Sprout. It contains all kinds of really cool information and ideas from everything from parenting to recipes to craft ideas for adults. It is a great addition to Sprout Online. I really enjoy reading the articles and learning new things. It is something every parent should check out in my opinion. There are things there for parents of any age not just preschoolers.

I am incredibly honored to be a part of Sprout, as a member of The Band of Bloggers and now part of Sprout for Parents as an expert and contributor. My article is about scrapbooking, which is such a fun hobby of mine. I really enjoyed writing the article and I hope it helps people that want to learn more about scrapbooking.

So, go check out my article called Scrapbooking 101. and look around and make sure you bookmark it and come back often because they are always adding new content.

Drawing with Noah

Noah loves to color and draw. We had been drawing in doodle on Yahoo Messenger. I decided to use paint today since he wanted to draw the night sky and I wasn’t going to sit there and color the whole box myself. So, I found some really cool features on paint. Noah told me what to draw and what to put where. He even helped by pushing the button several times. I really like how our picture turned out so I thought I would share it. I took screenshots of the ones we have drawn in the past and those will probably make appearances on my blog at a later date.
Here is Noah and Mommy’s interpretation of the night sky!

Ribbon is NOT Vacuum Friendly

I like to scrapbook and make cards, so naturally I own an insane amount of ribbon. I have ribbon in all colors, designs, and textures. I used to take part in online exchanges and crops and the host would send the winners prizes. It was fun. I haven’t scrapbooked in a coon’s age. Well, one of the prizes I received from an online crop was some sheer white ribbon, it was almost see-through. I sometimes do crafts in my room, even though I do have a scrapbook room.

I was cleaning one day and I was in the process of vacuuming, all the sudden my vacuum started smelling really bad and it stopped working. When I looked at what was caught in it, I saw that white sheer ribbon in the brushes. Ribbon is not vacuum friendly. It killed the vacuum cleaner, may it rest in peace. It also ruined my ribbon. I wish I would have seen it.

My other vacuum is junky too. It stinks when I use it. I had two Yankee Candle Macintosh Jar candles lit in my room and it smelled good until I vacuumed and oh man it stunk. Needless to say, I have bad luck with vacuums and there wasn’t a ribbon in sight. I really need to buy a new one, I have my eye on the Miele vacuum cleaner. I really hope my vacuum curse ends with this one.

Martha, Martha, MARTHA!!

If only I were like Martha Stewart. For a long time I have loved Martha Stewart. Even when she went to jail I thought she was innocent. From the moment I knew who she was until now I have enjoyed watching her and her ideas and recipes. I love the way she talks too. She is so interesting and brilliant. I guess I have always been a closet Martha. I mean granted I have always loved to cook, from the moment I was big enough to even help out. Growing up I was never really great at art. I hated art class. I was never really good at it. I am left handed so that is a pain for cutting. I never got “left handed” scissors. I could never make them cut. Yet, the teachers insisted on using them.

I loved cooking in school. I can still remember being in Jr. High in Mrs. Shrewsbury’s class making snickerdoodles and macaroni and cheese. That class was a lot of fun. Then in high school there was the infamous Foods class. I don’t think I will share that story in fear of incriminating myself and others involved. Really though it was nothing big. I did end up missing the Angel Food Cake Lab one day and I “had to” make it up in SRT (study hall) I never got to bring my Angel Food Cake home or even really eat hardly any. She took it and said it was the perfect angel food cake and she wanted other classes to taste it. I am just skilled like that. I ended up accidentally dropping a yolk in my egg whites but I got every speck out. I got like over 100% cause I got bonus points or something. As you all know cooking is a huge part of my life and one of my favorite pastimes. I love being in the kitchen. It is so much fun.

I used to never consider myself crafty. I thought being crafty was what older people did. It was something that Rosie O’Donnell would talk about on her talk show. I didn’t understand what the point was. I knew I wasn’t good at drawing. My stick figure people looked as if a six year old drew them and well I could cut too well, and about all I could do is color. I could make things out of Play-Doh but real clay forget it. So, crafty was out of the picture for me. I knew I would never be crafty. I couldn’t sew. I learned to sew a little bit from my Grandma Rose those were big stitches though. It just wasn’t me. I used to love to make candles. I was going to start doing that again but I never did.

My sister was the crafty one growing up. She would make Barbie furniture out of masking tape, she would make beads out of clay and she would make beaded things. She was the artistic one. If you compared her ceramics projects to mine it would be clear that she was much better at it than I was. I tried I just couldn’t get it. I think that is it partially because I was a perfectionist and if it wasn’t perfect I would scrap it and start over and I would never get it just right so that made it a fail. I had been like that for a while.

Then I became a mom and started getting interested in scrapbooking. I really liked it at first well, I liked the idea and all the little goodies that went with it. I started out by buying a fair amount of items. I didn’t make my first scrapbook page until a couple months later and my first card was made six months after I bought some stuff. But I ended up still buying stuff even though I had only done a few pages and a card or two. It was fun to pick out stuff. I eventually got in to it a lot where I was scrapbooking all the time. Now I am on a scrapping hiatus. I haven’t done a page in about 8 months! It’s not that I lack the materials, it’s the creativity and time. I have to be in a certain mood to create and it just hasn’t happened lately. So my stuff, my mountains of stuff, sit and wait for me.

I have ventured out in to making other crafts too. I make ornaments and embellished paperclips. I also make coasters and alter items. I still can not sew. I have always admired Martha Stewart and I think she has some great ideas. I was watching her last night On Demand and she made the cutest little gumdrop ornaments and all kinds of cool stuff. I thought it was cool to see her with her mom on a couple of the segments. I was curious to see how they interacted together. They were both the same.

I also like to watch Whatever Martha. I think it hilarious how they make fun of Martha’s show. I mean it was Martha’s idea from what she says in the opening credits. It makes you notice things about Martha that you might not before hand, for example the way she raises her eyebrow or how she is kind of grumpy at times.

I still love Martha Stewart and hope that I can hang out with her and cook and scrapbook with her. She sounds like a lot of fun. I subscribe to Martha Stewart Living and Body+ Soul. I like to look at Martha’s calendar for the month to see what she has going on. I really enjoy everything Martha!