Last year’s Christmas tree decorating creative table just may be Gracen’s most talked about activity of all time. She’s literally talked about it multiple times each month for a year straight now. I’m not sure what has made that particular activity so loved, but we’ll definitely be doing it again this year. In the meantime, I decided we’d try something similar, but not exactly the same… This time, a snowman building creative table!
After decorating gingerbread houses this morning, this afternoon I whipped up a batch of delicious-smelling and amazingly soft gingerbread play dough for Miss G to play with.
In addition to the play dough, I set out several things create gingerbread people with, including a rolling pin, cookie cutters, buttons, straw pieces, jingle bells, ribbon bits, and toothpicks.
Gracen dove in as she usually does and the play dough gingerbread people began rolling out of the kitchen.
She came up with so many fun ways to decorate them, some more traditional, and some a little more abstract…
The best part is that this dough smells so amazing that you sometimes forget that it’s just play dough and not actual gingerbread baking in the oven. ☺
♥
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Not too long ago, Miss G ‘s advent calendar pouch included jigsaw puzzle pieces and the instructions required to make a snowflake ornament. Gracen really enjoyed the project and loves her sparkly snowflake hanging on the tree, so she was excited to find more puzzle pieces and a note saying that they could be used to make a wreath ornament today.
This time, we started with an ‘O’ shaped cardboard base. Gracen glued her puzzle pieces (this time using just regular white glue) onto the cardboard doughnut, overlapping them as she went along.
When the ‘O’ was covered to her liking, we set it aside to dry for a while.
Later in the day, she came back and painted the puzzle piece wreath all green. She quickly discovered that dabbing the paint on gave much better coverage than brushing it on, so she went with that method.
When she was done painting, we let the wreath dry again.
Next came the really fun part – decorations! She chose magenta sequins as holly berries, but you could easily use buttons, mini pompoms, foam circles, or dot stickers too. Just add some dots of glue to the wreath and pop your decorations on.
The last step was adding a little ribbon bow I’d quickly made for her… Regular white glue worked just fine for this job too.
Later on in the evening, once the frontside was dry, I flipped it over and added a ribbon loop using my glue gun (I had it out already – you could just as easily use white glue or craft glue) and the pretty little ornament was ready for hanging.
♥
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For the last few days, Gracen’s been working on these sweet little nature wreaths at her creative table.
It started out as a very simple painting station with a few cardboard o’s and some paint in different shades of green.
When the paint was dry, I added a few other things into the mix… Glue, mini pinecones, bits of evergreen tree, and dried out red berries from her autumn nature shelf.
Though this creative table set-up didn’t take off quite like the paper christmas tree one did, it’s been something that she’s come back to each day. She’ll spend a little bit of time adding to one of her wreaths, move onto something else, and come back another time.
This morning, after walking past the wreath on our door, she asked if she could have some bows for her wreaths, so I brought out my glue gun, cut up some ribbon, and added a few to the table.
After adding her bow, she put on the finishing touches…
And voila! A beautiful little Christmas wreath made of things {mostly} found outdoors.
♥
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As much as I’d love to have an entire room dedicated to play and discovery, our little two bedroom house simply doesn’t have the space. So instead of an actual playroom, we’ve taken various playroom elements and created play spaces around the house so that Gracen always has plenty of opportunities to create, explore, and play. If you were to visit our house, you’d most likely see some sort of sensory tray or bin happening in our kitchen, an easel and art supplies in our dining area, a felt board station, creative table, and toy area in the living room, and a nature shelf, dress-up corner, and book nook in Gracen’s room. This set up works really well for us and the nice part is that if I’m making dinner or folding a load of laundry or doing some sort of other job, Gracen always has the choice of doing a project or activity of her own in the same room.
One of the areas Gracen’s especially taken interest in lately is her creative table. All it is a regular kid-sized table and chair set, but the fun part is that new creating materials find their way onto the table every few days. Some days the materials are really simple (something like card stock, stickers, and crayons, or paper, stamps, and ink pads), and other days the materials are a little more exciting (sparkly pipe cleaners and shiny pony beads, or chocolate play dough, gingerbread man-shaped cookie cutters, and buttons). I almost always put out new materials while Miss G’s asleep, and I leave them for her to discover on her own. Though I don’t actively encourage her to engage in the activities at her creative table (they’re more of an ongoing invitation to create), she almost always squeals in delight upon finding something new and gets creating right away.
This invitation to decorate paper Christmas trees was a HUGE hit today. So much so that she ended up creating seven different trees and took her time with each, creating seven unique masterpieces.
Today, Gracen’s advent calendar pouch included a handful of jigsaw puzzle pieces (from Urban Source) and a handwritten note telling her that they could be used to make a snowflake ornament (I originally found the idea here). She of course was ready to begin the project the very instant she opened it.
While puzzle pieces are the main material, a few other things are needed to make this pretty little ornament… Glue of some sort (craft glue or hot glue would probably work best), some white crafter’s acrylic and a paintbrush, a scrap of cardboard or card stock cut into a circle, a small piece of ribbon or string to hang the ornament from, and some glitter (completely optional, but not in Miss G’s opinion).
To get started, glued 3 puzzle pieces onto our cardboard circle, evenly spaced like this.
During the process, we quickly realized that pieces shaped similarly to this one were going to work the best, so we dug those out and put the others aside.
Next, we added 3 more puzzle pieces. We tried to place them on top of the original 3 as the instructions say to do, but when it didn’t work out very well for us, we slid the original 3 out closer to the edges, and added the next 3 onto the edges of the cardboard circle too. It worked out perfectly and was much easier for Gracen to do.
When our snowflake was completely dry about an hour later, Gracen gave it a good once over with white paint.
While the paint was still wet, she did the job I think she looks forward to most when crafting…. She sprinkled on a very generous amount of sparkles over the entire thing.
Later in the evening when her snowflake was dry, I hot glued a little loop of ribbon onto the back, and voila – a new handmade ornament to add to our tree.
♥
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This evening, Miss G and I put together something I loved making as a child… a simple paper chain. We started with some paper scraps I had left over from a Christmas bunting and used a paper cutter to trim them into neat strips.
Miss G then chose her “special starting paper”, loaded one end with several swipes of a glue stick…
And I helped her roll it up and she pinched it tightly while counting to ten.
Together, we added ring after ring…
Until we had this sweet little holiday-themed paper chain. I’m not sure what we’ll do with it yet… In my classrooms, I’ve always used them as a countdown tracker of sorts, snipping off one link until the big day, but I’m not sure that Grae is going to want to cut apart the creation she’s so proud of. It may just be a sweet little addition to the holiday decor we’ve slowly been adding around our house.
♥
I know I’ve said it before, but becoming a mama has given me an overwhelming urge to create special traditions with our little family of three. Things that we look forward to each year… Memories Gracen will hold onto for a lifetime. The holidays are extra special when looked at through the eyes of your child, aren’t they?
Looking back on my own childhood, the holidays were filled with special traditions I still remember vividly now as an adult. Trudging through the snow out at Imperial Oil (where my Dad worked) in the freezing cold and selecting the perfect tree to cut down and take home… Having a special evening dedicated to decorating the tree together… Visiting ALL of my grandparents’ houses over the course of Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, and Boxing Day… Staying up as late as we wanted on Christmas Eve with our cousins… It all seemed so magical. The thing is, the times I remember most have nothing to do with wish lists, Santa visits, or presents received. All of the memories that stick out in my mind are about doing things as a family… Just us spending time together.
And that’s my hope for Gracen when it comes to the holidays… That she’ll come to cherish the time we spent doing things together more that any of the material indulgence that inevitably comes with Christmas.
This past weekend, we carried on a tradition that we began last year… An afternoon filled with holiday music and handcrafted ornaments. The hope is that one day we’ll have a giant tree filled with beautifully mismatched homemade ornaments that mean more to us than store bought ones ever could.
Here are this year’s additions…
First up are some very simple, but very beautiful beaded candy cane ornaments.
To make these, we used sparkly pipe cleaners cut in half and colourful iridescent pony beads Miss G selected at the store herself.
To get started, I simply folded over one end of the pipe cleaner to create a little nub to hold the beads on, and Grae began adding beads.
The wonderful thing about making these ornaments is that little ones get to sneak in a ton of fine motor skill practice while making them.
Once the pipe cleaner is nearly full, just flip over the open end to create a nub on the opposite side.
Then gently bend your beaded pipe cleaner to form a candy cane shape. (This is the one that Gracen made – start to finish – by herself).
Next, we did a remake of an ornament we made last year… A glass bulb decorated with a family of thumbprint reindeer. To make this one, select a solid-coloured glass bulb (one with a matte finish will photograph much better – duh!), then cover your thumb with a thick layer of brown crafter’s acrylic.
Carefully press your thumb onto the glass ball.
Hang your ball somewhere or carefully set it on a small cup and allow it to dry completely.
Once dry, use red crafter’s acrylic to add noses and a black paint pen or Sharpie to add eyes and antlers. Easy peasy!
The last batch of ornaments we made were out of cinnamon dough (2 cups of applesauce, 3 cups of cinnamon, 2 tablespoons of nutmeg, and 1 tablespoon of pure vanilla mixed like mad by hand ). With these ones, we used extra cinnamon to prevent sticking, assorted cookie cutters, stamps, straws to create ribbon holes, a rolling pin, and parchment paper.
This dough was quite tough and much easier to work with than last weekend’s baking soda clay.
It could easily be rolled, handled, and stamped without sticking at all, which was nice.
On the downside, handprints and thumbprints were out of the question. The dough just simply didn’t have enough give to it.
Once we’d filled our baking sheet, we popped the ornaments into the oven on the lowest setting and let them stay in there for several hours, flipping them once and a while.
I wish I could somehow bottle the smell of our house while they baked and share it with you all here… It was divine.
Before going to bed, I turned off the oven and let the ornaments sit in there overnight, just like I did with the baking soda clay ones.
When we awoke, they were fully dry and hard as a rock, but still smelled delicious. (These are a few of the ones G made all by herself). We added small loops of baker’s twine, and voila – they’re ready for hanging.
And how sweet is this little initial bunting Bradley made for Gracen?
Now we just have to get a tree so that we’ll have somewhere to hang all of these beautiful new ornaments.
♥
