12 Days of Crafting- A Bit of Baking

My aunt promised Simon she would come over and bake cookies with him. We made traditional gingerbread cookies, using Mrs. Field's recipe.  He was sooo excited to roll out the dough and cut out the cookies.  The morning turned into a family affair with four generations baking together.   My grandmother, my mom and aunt, me, and the kids.  What a great memory for all of us!

What special holiday memories have you created this year?

12 Days of Crafting- Masterpiece Christmas Cards

If you are like me, you have piles and piles of your child's artwork.  In our case, we have piles of watercolor paintings on heavy watercolor paper.  An interesting way to honor your child's artwork, it to recycle it onto a Christmas card, or make a brand new masterpiece.  We chose to make tiny heart cut outs, and glue them onto Christmas cards.

I picked a Christmas tree motif, but I think these look great when the kids glue their shapes in an organic way.  There are no mistakes here.  I plan on putting gift cards in these little masterpieces.  Just a small way to make a gift card more personal.  How do you honor your child's artwork? 

12 Days of Crafting- Paper Snowflakes

Nothing is prettier than making your own paper snowflakes and hanging them around the house.  I received this book about 7 years ago, and I used it constantly in my classroom.  Since we had a dusting of snow last night, I thought it was appropriate to pull this book out and make some more snowflakes.  Unfortunately this book is out of print, but there are a couple of used copies on Amazon.

 

*A tip to get your snowflakes to hang nicely, iron them at a low setting.  

12 Days of Crafting- Silhouette Portrait

One of my favorite stores is The Paper Source in Oak Park, IL.  Ever since my art student days, I would buy beautiful printed paper and decorate books, make books, or other crafts.  I saw this adorable project for a silhouette portrait, using decorative paper decoupaged on top of a frame.


I put my own twist on this project, by decoupaging precut oval mat board. Further, I used my handy iPhone to take pictures of the kids, and printed the images out on 8.5"x11" paper.  I cut this image out, and used it as a template to trace their faces onto black card stock.

This project turned out adorable, and would make a great grandparent gift.  

12 Days of Crafting- Coconut Body Scrub

Ever since I discovered Virgin Coconut Oil at Trader Joe's, I've been in love.  I use it for everything.....eye makeup remover, face lotion, body lotion, baby lotion, baby butt paste, etc. While perusing Pinterest, I discovered an awesome recipe for Coconut Sugar Scrub.  Tonight, I tried this basic recipe, but I added a couple of twists.  There are two basic ingredients:  Coconut Oil, and Sugar.  Mix two parts sugar to one part coconut oil.  I put my coconut oil in the microwave for one minute.  This made mixing much much easier.  A couple of ways to spice up this recipe is to add one or two drops of your favorite essential oils, and also add orange and lemon rinds.  Finally, pour the mixture into some cute mason jars, stick on labels, and it is ready to go.

12 Days of Crafting- Felt Monogram Gift Tag

My craft closet is filled with felt scraps from our mod felt tree.  I created felt monogram gift tags, to go along with our handmade wrapping paper.  Just use fabric glue and let your imagination go wild!  If a monogram is too difficult for your child, a mini felt collage is another great option.  

12 Days of Crafting- Homemade Wrapping Paper

A nice way to personalize Christmas gifts is to decorate wrapping paper.  We used white Ikea paper, but butcher block paper is fine or any large sheet of paper would do.  I allowed the kids to use Dot Art Markers to stamp the paper.  Other ways to decorate wrapping paper would be to stamp it, paint it, or even just draw with markers.  The point is to have children personalize the wrapping paper.  Friends and relatives will receive a bonus piece of art with their gift.