New Year’s Past

When my children were little one thing that was always a part of Christmas and New Year’s was the “cracker.” Not a cracker-cracker, like you’d eat with cheese, but a cracker like the paper ones you’d break open with a “crack” and find small prizes inside. One of the trinkets that was always a charming part of the cracker was a paper crown. They were quite fragile–being made out of tissue paper and all, but the kids loved them. Best part about them was that it was a fun tradition that they came to expect and love.

So, years later, when they were grown–we got really brave and decide not only to make our own crowns, but to hand make the crackers as well. We had a blast finding just the right loot to fill the crackers with for each family member.

And it was even more fun to force all the grown-ups to wear the crowns! HA!

If you’d like to make your own crackers or crowns–it’s so easy and there’s still time.

Click HERE for crowns

and HERE for crackers.

I hope you’ll come back and show us how they turn out!

Bauble Snowflakes


Simple…

sweet…

and slightly elegant–don’t you think? This little Christmas craft is one of the most enjoyable things I’ve done in a while. In fact, it was a bit addicting…so beware!

If you have a moderate stash of random buttons–like I do–you’ll likely end up with a dozen new ornaments in a very short amount of time. I’m talking like 20 minutes or so.

Beat that.

Start with popcicle sticks. The long ones are fine, but I LOVE the little short ones the very best. I found them at JoAnn’s a few months ago, and to tell the truth, I bought them just because they were just so darn cute!

Glue the sticks together in an asterisk shape. The first time around, we only used 3 sticks–but then we went back and added a fourth. They were more snowflakey that way. See for yourself.

Glue buttons on the sticks in whatever color patterns work for you. I used Elmer’s glue because you know how deadly the glue gun is in SOME people’s hands and since I wasn’t actually interested in spending Christmas in the burn unit–I just left the creepy thing alone.

But of course, you can choose for yourself.

Watch out though…

You may just get carried away…

like we did.

Tinsel Trees

In the quest to entertain a couple of two-year-olds–

clever April came up with a fun, little Christmas craft that was simple enough for the babies to be involved and yet turned out quite pretty when bigger hands took over.

See what you think…

You’ll need:

green tinsel pipe cleaners

craft glue

beads

We made them on paper plates so that the beads didn’t escape the little hands entirely. Take the first pipe cleaner and fold it in half.

Twist a small loop in the fold end…

and continue twisting all the way down.

Cut the remaining pipe cleaners into “branches” of longer to shorter lengths.

Twist each length around the main “trunk” all the way up.

Trim them if you want or just leave them in their natural state.

Dot the craft glue wherever you want your bead ornaments.

Now hand the kids the beads and let them decorate the trees.

Let them sit for a few hours until the glue is completely dry. Fix an ornament hanger to the top—and there you have it!

A sweet, sparkly little tree for the tree.

Simply lovely.

Thanks Prell.

Personal Native American Placecards

Oh, baby–here they come. Pocahontas and her pals. Just in time for Thanksgiving!

Remember last year when we filled the table with Pilgrims? Well, we have their counter parts all ready for you.

You can download your very own Personal Native American Placecards–right this minute. Color them or use them as a pattern for colored paper cut outs…

or let the papooses do it for you…either way.

Cut out the pieces–clip the fringe strip so it looks like…fringe.

Now you can do this a couple of ways. Either roll the dress and staple it–like we did for the pilgrims–or wrap the dress and fringe around a tissue tube–which is what we did.

Next, glue or tape the family face of your choice above the neck of the dress…

or whatever you call it when you force a brave to wear it.

You can tape or glue the fringe at the neck or at the bottom…or in the middle for that matter. But that would be kind of ugly. We’re letting the older kiddos make their own –so I’ll show you the results of that soon. But I wanted you to have the pattern now so that you could get going on them before the table is set. 

I think your little babies will love these little babies.

Ours did. 

Pilgrim Placecards

Turkey Placecards

Thankful Pie

Looking for a fun way to help the kiddos focus on their blessings while the turkey is cooking?

How about making a simple little Thankful Pie?

Paint the edges of a paper plate a light brown–to look like pie crust.

Next, use a bowl to trace a circle out of pumpkin colored scrapbook paper.  Cut it out and glue it to the middle of the paper plate.

Attach a plain paper plate to the back of your “pie” with a brad fastened in the middle.

Cut out a wedge from the top “pie” plate–being careful not to cut too near the middle.

You can write whatever you’d like on your pie. We passed out stickers for everyone to write their “blessings” on.

Then, we stuck them on the wedge space, turned it a few inches and attached another.  You’d be surprised at how many blessings your pie will hold.

As you can see…everyone had different ideas…of what to be thankful for.

For me…it’s all pretty obvious. Don’t you think?

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