Tag Archives: Christmas tree
Christmas Tree Play Dough and Cookie Cutter Gifts
It’s very likely that our friends may soon disown us for constantly gifting them with play dough… And until then, we’ll probably just continue coming up with clever ways to present it and give it anyways {sorry, friends}. ☺
Christmas Tree Play Dough Kit
Okay, so I admit it – we’re a bit play dough kit obsessed over here. We can’t help it. Play dough is something that we play with on a daily basis and having pre-made kits filled with dough and interesting loose parts makes it really easy to delve into the fun – everything that’s needed is right there in a container waiting to be taken out! It also means that Grae can easily help herself to a kit and have a fun activity pre-prepared for independent play times, which I love.
A Christmas Tree Made of Fruit
With our complex’s kids Christmas party happening this afternoon, Miss G and I hit up Pinterest this morning for a little snack inspiration. I knew that there would be plenty of sweet treats (there always is) and with Gracen not eating sugar, we always try to bring something healthy, but fun. As soon as we began our search, Grae fell head over heels for this awesome upright fruit tree. I loved the look of it too, but I wasn’t thrilled about attaching food to a styrofoam cone, and knowing how much we had going on today, knew I wouldn’t have a ton of time to experiment with a healthier alternative. As we continued browsing, we came across this fun Christmas tree vegetable platter, which we both loved. Gracen thought about it for a minute and then asked if we could make a broccoli tree but with fruit. Sure thing, little lady. A broccoli tree, but with fruit it is.
Button Ornament Christmas Tree
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After seeing Buddy & Buggy’s awesome 3 dimensional felt trees, I went in search of styrofoam cones {again with the styrofoam, I know…} Lo and behold, I found some at our beloved City Star in Egaila. I came home excited to cover them with felt, but when I spotted our star-shaped buttons in our crafting closet, a new project took shape.
Christmas Tree Decorating Creative Table
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.
Christmas Tree Felt Board
Last year, Miss G had her own wall-hung Christmas tree to made of felt. I won’t go into the grossness that is the fact that our garage is home to mice (or the fact that her little tree wasn’t properly packed away), but needless to say, the tree is no longer.
Since Grae’s really been enjoying her felt board games lately, and since I have other plans for the little chunk of wall that held last year’s tree, I decided to make her a smaller Christmas tree felt board set this time around.
All it took was a big sheet of green felt (available in craft stores) cut free hand in the shape of a tree, a brown felt stump attached to the base of the tree with fabric glue (hot glue or craft glue would work just fine too), some ornaments cut from bright coloured felt, and a yellow star to top the tree.
And since Grae had a really nice long nap and I had finished all of the other pieces, I decided to cut out a couple of presents for her to place under the tree too.
Now she has a {new} little tree that can decorate again and again all by herself, regardless of the time of year.
See our other felt board ideas, as well as a tutorial on how to make your own easy felt board here.
♥
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