I decided that this year the girls and I would work on some fun crafts projects for the holidays.  Pinterest is full of wonderful craft ideas, so I went to Hobby Lobby, armed with a list of items we would need to create all I had pinned.

My hope was to complete several different crafts during the week.  It hasn’t quite happened that way, yet we have created some fun things this year.

First we took Styrofoam balls and hot glued small craft pom poms  and ribbon on it to create a pom-pom ornament.  It’s a pretty simple project for kids, although I think it would have been better had I bought smaller balls.

Then we created snowmen using small terra-cotta pots and wooden balls.  First the girls painted the pots and balls white.  Using our hot glue gun again, we glued the wooden balls onto the bottom of the terra-cotta pots and drew eyes and a mouth to create the face.  The girls each chose a small button and glued it onto their snowman to create the nose.  Buttons were glued down the front of the snowmen and fun sparkly yarn was used as a scarf.  To complete the ensemble, I cut the heel and toe from a pair of Naomi’s outgrown fuzzy socks.  We glued the top of the socks onto the snowmen heads, stuffed with a little fiberfill and tied it at the top with sparkling elastic string.

I happen to think they turned out pretty well and the girls are very proud of their snowmen.

Over the weekend we tried our hand at creating some fun ornaments.

First we cut festive tissue paper into small pieces, then put the pieces into clear glass ornaments.

Word of warning . . . . .

Sometimes, there are sharp pieces of glass inside the neck of the ornaments, so please check carefully.  Fortunately, no children were injured during this project, but an adult may have received a tiny cut.

Cutting and stuffing ornaments with tissue paper is more time-consuming then we thought, so we switched to another ornament project.

This time, I cut up small pieces of crayon and we put the pieces in ornaments.  Using a blow dryer, we melted the crayon and rolled the ornament around to create different color combinations.

The girls were in charge of the blow dryer and I held the ornaments using hot pads because the ornaments get really hot when melting crayons.

I’m not sure, but this may have been the girls favorite Holiday project, although the snowmen ranked pretty high as well.

If our schedule permits, we hope to complete a few more projects over the next week.  This is such a wonderful way of  way of building up the girls stash of holiday decorations that they can take with them into adulthood.  And even more important, we’re creating lasting memories that we will carry with us throughout our lives.

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