Monthly Archives: December 2012

Dec14

Easy Toddler Craft, Christmas Reindeer

Posted on December 14, 2012 by thestick81

How cute are these? Mr 7s year 6 buddy made him one for Christmas. I had to give them a go with the little ones.

Super simple and we had everything lying around the house (I will admit I do buy wooden pegs just for craft, they are not much good for hanging out washing!)

We started off painting them assembled, but that was just silly. Paint all the bits first, THEN assemble once they are dry.

Add some eyes, a red nose and some pipe cleaner antlers.

We even made a baby one with the mini craft pegs and mini paddle pop sticks.

: What you need

: The ‘skeleton’

: painting the reindeer

: painting the reindeer

: adding the eyes

: adding the nose

: The reindeer family

: Reindeer eating some hay

: Playing the the grass

: Reindeer Toddler craft

: Reindeer baby

: Christmas craft

Dec14

Classic Christmas Cooking – Window Biscuit Decorations

Posted on December 14, 2012 by thestick81

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Classic Christmas Cooking – Window Biscuit Decorations

I helped the kids in Mr 8s class make these at school, so thought we would give them a try at home. There is heaps of different recipes out there, so you can really make them any flavour you wants, but you want to choose a biscuit that doesn’t rise too much. We used a basic butter biscuit recipe.

125g butter, softened
1/2 cup caster sugar
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 egg, at room temperature
2 cups plain flour
1/2 teaspoon of baking soda.

I also added a sprinkle of cinnamon and all spice. I probably don’t need to tell you how to make biscuits. To be honest, they rose a little more than I would have liked, so might use a different recipe next time. The recipe also started with the usual ‘pre-heat oven’, but after mixing the ingredients you had to put the dough into the fridge for 45 minutes. What a waste of electricity having your oven running all that time?

Use any shapes you like, then a smaller shape inside. Pop a hard lolly (boiled lolly or jolly rancher etc) into the centre and bake on some baking paper at around 180 for only a few minutes. The lolly will melt in the time it takes to cook the biscuit. So simple.

If you live in an area of the world that is humid, these wont last long on the tree. So just eat them!

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: Ingredients

: Mr 7 rolling the dough

: Cutting out the shapes

: Place on baking paper and add lolly to centre.

: Poke a small hole in the edges if you’d like to be able to hang them on the tree.

: Bake

: Allow to cool

: The cookies

: On DDs stick tree

: Cookie ornaments

: The left over gingerbread men

: In the light

: Trying to catch the sun.

Dec13

Sweet Christmas Treats – Mars Bar Crackles.

Posted on December 13, 2012 by thestick81

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Sweet Christmas Treats – Mars Bar Crackles.

These are a really easy alternate to the traditional chocolate crackles. They are not as sickly sweet either, so adults can enjoy them.

All you need is 2 table spoons of cream (some recipes say thin cream, but either works) 200 or more grams of Mars Bars Rice bubbles (home brand will be fine) and thats it. I also add chocolate drops and coconut for some different textures, but that is not at all necessary.

Break up the bars and add the cream (I also added coconut at this stage). Microwave in 30 second bursts, stirring at each interval to avoid hot spots (burnt chocolate). Once its all runny, you can either add the rice bubbles directly, or poor into another bowl that has the rice bubbles in it. This actually works better as its easier to distribute and you don’t end up with a heap of chocolate stuck to the bottom of the bowl.

Allow to cool slightly (you can put it in the fridge) so that you can roll the mix into balls. When its hot its just too sticky and you can’t get it off your hands. If you are going to add extra chocolate drops, do it when the mixture is cooler so they don’t melt.

: What you need

: Separating the papers – good job for Ms 3

: We started with 40 papers

: Breaking up the Mars Bars

: Poring in the melted ingredients

: Mix thoroughly

: Roll and place into the papers

: Added some little cachous to make them a little more Christmasy.

Dec12

Home Made Christmas Cards – Kids Craft

Posted on December 12, 2012 by thestick81

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Unlike most of our projects, where I get inspired by Pinterest or something else, I actually thought this up myself!

Really easy messy fun for all ages. Just take some coloured paper and draw some simple Christmas shapes. If drawing is not your thing, trace around some cookie cutters.

Cover inside the outline with a thick layer of craft glue. Smear around with a paintbrush or a finger tip if you don’t mind getting sticky.

Then sprinkle christmas theme sequins randomly over the glued area. Try to cover the outline as much as possible too.

When you can’t see much of the paper within the shape, give it a light shake. Then drizzle some more glue over the top to hold down any loose ones.

Allow to dry. We left them for 24 hours.

Once dry, Use some large sharp scissors, cut around the shape. If you can’t see the outline on the front, just follow the lines that went through the page as demonstrated above.

Once the shapes are cut out, we added some double sided mounting tape (commonly used for scrap booking) to give them a slightly more 3D effect on the card, but you could just use standard double sided tape or glue.

Position on the cards as you please, and there you have it. Sparkly Christmas cards. Mini ones of these would also make cute Gift Tags. Just line the other side with another piece of paper to write on and use a hole punch to make somewhere to secure with ribbon.

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: Cover with a thick layer of glue

: spread glue around

: Sprinkle heavily with sequins

: Covering with sequins

: Drizzle another thin layer of glue all over

: Allow to dry thoroughly.

: Once dry, cut out the shape

: Cutting out the shape

: The cut out shapes.

: Mounting tape.

: Finished product

: Finished cards,

: Hanging up.

Dec10

Christmas Cards, Kids Craft

Posted on December 10, 2012 by thestick81

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I couldn’t get my hand on any decent glitter paint pens to finish these, so this is just part one of the process.

To make these decorated cards, all you need is a hot glue gun, strips of wrapping paper, card and either some large buttons or as we used, some plastic jewels.

Cut strips of Christmas paper, approximately 3 – 4 cm wide and 30 – 40cm long. Fold back and forth to create a zig zag, approximately 1cm wide. As demonstrated by Mr 7 below.

Once folded the whole way to the end, glue both ends together. You can get the kids to do this with craft glue, but I chose to use the glue gun as it dries so much quicker.

Once the glue has dried, put a circle of hot glue onto the card where you want to place your decoration

Carefully turn the paper in at one side and out on the other, to create a flower type shape. Trying not to let it all go at the same time as you can see on the right above. The first one is the hardest!

Then cover the back of your jewel of button with hot glue and place in the centre. Repeat until you have as many decorations on each card as you like. You can experiment with different thicknesses of paper to create bigger and smaller ones.

Dec9

Teacher Christmas Gift ideas – part 2.

Posted on December 9, 2012 by thestick81

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This year, with changing schools and doing my Ed support certificate, I spent a fair bit of time hassling the ladies in the school office. They are all very lovely and didn’t mind, but I really wanted to say thank-you. Also, there is the little 2’s day care providers. They only go one day a week, but they are great staff, so I figure they deserve some token of our appreciation. I originally thought of making some sweets and wrapping them up to share around the office/centre, but after Mr7’s teacher claiming the doesn’t eat chocolate, I am damaged. So I decided to find something small, that you don’t feel obliged to keep, but you can use and most people like – a votive seemed just perfect. I shopped around all the cheap shops hoping to find something that was affordable without looking cheap and nasty, then went to Dusk and found 6 packs of Christmas themed votives for $16.95. Which was about what I had budgeted for.

I grabbed a packet of Ferrero chocolates to top them off. Then just stocked up with some Christmas ribbons and gift tags. Not really sure what was going to work. After some trial and error, this was the finished product.

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: The votives

: Adding the chocolate

: Wrapping in cellophane

: With beads, decided they were a bit too much though.

: Finished product

: Finished prodcut

: What we used (plus clear cellophane)

Dec3

Quick Kids Craft – Christmas Themed

Posted on December 3, 2012 by thestick81

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Mr 7 actually came up with this by himself. He was not home when we did the leaf pictures, but he used that idea for inspiration.

Some craft glue, a marker, coloured paper, leaves and flowers and a brush.

I drew the basic outline for him, while he and Ms 3 collected some fine leaves and flowers from the garden.

Spread the paint into the area you want to cover.

Then he painted the glue on.

and start sticking

The finished product.

Too easy! Next time we might frame them. Or cut out the shape and put it on some different coloured backing.

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: Some craft glue, a marker, coloured paper, leaves and flowers and a brush.

: Spread the paint into the area you want to cover.

: and start sticking

: Ms 3 and Mr 7 sticking on the flowers and leaves

: The finished product.

Dec2

Not your every day tree – Christmas Craft

Posted on December 2, 2012 by thestick81

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Not your every day tree – Christmas Craft

This idea actually came from a Woolworths Fresh Magazine idea, but I have also seen similar things on Pinterest and other blogs. I went slightly over the top compared to theirs – so unlike me.

We went for a walk around the local park lands and collected some sticks that I thought would be good for the job.

The branches

Then I gave them a light spray of white paint.

Spray painting the branches

Left in the sun to dry for a few hours, which resulted in this

The painted branches

The original idea I was looking at used a rusty bucket for the pot, but as I don’t have one of those laying around, I had to come up with something else. I found an empty plastic pot and decided we could work with that.

Covering the plastic pot with aluminium foil

I covered it in a layer of aluminium foil, before a layer of transparent cellophane just to give it a bit more shine.

Then a layer of cellophane to go with your colour theme

Once we were happy with the finish of that, we collected some rocks from the garden to fill the pot and hold the branches into position.

Filled the pot with rocks to secure the branches and to stop it tipping over.

Then it was time to decorate!

Decorating the tree

Outside, to try to catch the sparkle

With LEDs around the base

I am really struggling to get a good photo of this thing, just like the bauble tree, because the camera takes away all the sparkle. It really stands out in real life. I might have to read my camera manual.

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