Sparkly Heart-Shaped Wands

1 / 31 / 131 / 25 / 14

In addition to our annual Valentine’s Day tea, Gracen and I have a couple of other Valentine’s parties and classes to attend this year. And since we don’t do the whole candy thing just yet, it means getting a little bit more creative with the ‘treats’ she hands out. When I asked her what she’d like to give her friends, she responded with Valentine’s slime (thanks I’m sure to our Halloween version for her ballet class friends) and heart wands (thanks to a Kiwi Crate package we received from our most recent PBK story time). And because both take a little bit of prep work, we started early… More time left over to figure out what we’ll bring for the 30+ kiddos in her Strong Start class, right?

These little wands are beautiful and easy to make, and although some may think they’re a little ‘girly’, we believe that hearts and magic are for everyone. ☺

Here are the materials we used for the project… Wooden dowels, adhesive glitter foam sheets, acrylic paint, a paint brush, and some ribbon. The best part is that we picked up all of these things at our local dollar store, so not only were they inexpensive, but we only had to make one stop – always nice with a toddler in tow.

First off, we started the project by painting our wooden dowels. Miss G does not always enjoy having her hands covered in paint, so we attached clothespins to the ends of the dowels so she could rotate them as she painted without painting her fingers. When she declared a dowel done, I went over the stick with a couple of quick strokes in order to smooth out the globs.

Then, because the tips were not painted where the clothespins were, I was able to stick the dowels into chunks of {gingerbread} play dough to dry upright.

A couple of days later, when our paint was good and dry (it actually only takes about an hour), we came back to our project. We started by drawing a heart shape onto a piece of cardboard and cutting it out to use as a tracer.

Next, using our newly-made tracer, we traced hearts onto the backs of our foam sheets. Gracen was happy to do the first few, and let me do the others when it came to this job.

With some strategic placement, we were able to fit 4 hearts onto each of our foam sheets, but of course it depends on the size of your tracer and the size of your foam sheets.

Next, we cut out the hearts.

Now to actually assemble a wand, you need two foam hearts, a wooden dowel, and a cute little helper.

This right here was Grae’s favourite part of the whole project… Peeling the backings off of the hearts!

With one heart shaped peeled, we placed the sticky side up on our work surface and placed the unfinished end of our dowel in the centre of the heart, up maybe an inch or inch and a half from the bottom.

Then Grae peeled the backing off of another heart, and we carefully placed it on top of the dowel, making sure to line up the hearts as closely as we could.

With the heart in a good position, Grae pressed everything together firmly.

Next up – the ribbon! We chose 3 colours, looped them in half, and cut them slightly shorter than the length of our exposed dowel .

Then we stacked them up and tied them onto the dowel at the base of the heart, giving them a little tug to coax them into falling downwards nicely.

Then, with a different, slightly narrower ribbon, we tied a bow right above the previous ribbon knot…

And finished off all of the ribbon ends with v snips.

And there you have it. Sparkly heart-shaped wands for Miss G’s little friends.

♥

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A Yearly Tradition: Handcrafted Christmas Ornaments

11 / 27 / 129 / 22 / 13

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.

♥

I am so thrilled to be sharing this family tradition as a part of ‘12 Days of Christmas Traditions with Vancouver’s Top Mommy Bloggers‘. If you haven’t already, please pop over to JulieNowell.com to read her post about carrying out traditions in a new home, and be sure to pop over to The Write Mama tomorrow to read all about Lori’s Christmas Village tradition. Enjoy!

Handprint Spiders & Golf Ball Painted Webs

10 / 23 / 129 / 17 / 13

Today Gracen and I did one of our favourite things… We had a little mama and babe crafternoon. A Halloween crafternoon to be exact!

This is by no means a new idea, and it’s nothing fancy, but it is something I’ve always enjoyed doing with my kindergarten students. It’s fun, messy, and personalized with wee little handprints. Perfect for Halloween cards for grandparents, teachers, or a special friend. Here’s a quick run down of how Gracen created this little masterpiece.

First, start off by drawing a large asterisk on a piece of black construction paper or card stock (we use a hand over hand technique for jobs like this).

Next, connect the tips of the asterisk with concave lines in order to create a web shape.

Then, cut out the web. (This is tricky for little hands. Gracen tried, but our poster board is was so thick that it was next to impossible for her… This may be more of an adult helper sort of job.)

Place a small roll of tape in the centre of your web.

Tape the web down in the centre of a box lid, baking pan, or plastic paper tray.

Next, put some white paint in a small bowl or container and plop a {very scuffed} golf ball, bouncy ball, or large marble inside. (While I find golf balls work best because they’re big and heavy, marbles and bouncy balls make a more solid, web-like lines.)

Shake and swirl the container so that the golf ball is well coated with paint.

Next, gently tip your golf ball out of the container and onto the web.

Swirl and roll the paint-coated ball over the black paper web by tipping the tray back and forth.

When it’s sufficiently spider web-y, remove the paper from the tray and set it aside to dry.

Now for the spider… Gather up some brightly coloured paper, black paint, and a foam brush.

Using a foam brush, paint a good, thick layer of black paint on your little one’s palm and fingers (not the thumb).

Help your little one press their hand on the paper a couple of times to create two spider bodies and half of the needed legs. Allow the prints to dry for a couple of minutes while you wash hands.

Next, rotate the page so that the fingers are pointed downwards.

This time around, paint just the four fingers of your little one’s hand. (I like to use the opposite hand for this part so that the fingers are angled the same way, but that’s just the crazy in me. ☺)

Stamp them on the other side of the palm print in order to complete the spider’s body.

When the paint is dry, attach some googly eyes to the spider’s body using white craft glue.

Then, cut the spiders out, leaving a small border of coloured paper around the edges.

Attach the spider to the web with glue or tape, or if you want the spider to have a little wiggle to it, glue a small pompom in between the web and spider. And voila… All done!

And if handprints are still too tricky for your little one, here’s what we did last year using a footprint instead:

♥