Arts and Crafts in our New Home

This is the arts and crafts center in our new home. This area is in the finished part of our basement. I love that this section has a tile floor for easy clean up, cabinets for storage, and a SINK!!!!!! Woo Hoo! Arts and crafts have left the kitchen! Soon, we will have some artwork on those walls!

Handprint Santa

I saw a handprint Santa on the Family Fun website, and knew R would love to make it. She loves having her hands and feet painted for crafts. C, on the other hand, does not want his hand or any other body part painted for crafts.


I think this Santa is adorable. R used dot markers to make the nose and cheeks, and she finger painted the fur on Santa's hat (the hat is cut out of construction paper). I love hand print crafts!

Photo with Santa

Holiday Fun

We went to a free event in town this past weekend and the kids had a lot of fun. They enjoyed decorating and eating cookies, decorating ornaments, listening to stories, and visiting Santa.

It was a lot of fun and we did not spend a dime!

Rudolph Magnets

To make a Rudolph magnet, you need:

• 3 puzzle pieces painted brown
• a small red pom pom for the nose
• two small googly eyes
• a sticker or decoration for the antlers (optional)
• magnetic backing
  

Directions:

1. Glue the painted puzzle pieces together so that one piece is the head and the other two pieces are the antlers
2. Glue on the googly eyes
3. Glue on the pom pom nose
4. Stick or glue on the decoration
5. Attach a magnet to the back, or you could attach a ribbon and make this an ornament.

Tips: I recommend hot glue! If you have an old puzzle that is missing pieces, save the pieces for crafts. If not, you can always pick up a puzzle at the dollar store and designate the pieces for crafts. I have seen a lot of cute crafts that use puzzle pieces.

Dinner with the Grinch

C and R enjoyed dinner with the Grinch tonight. T was there too, but he didn't want his picture taken. After dinner, we drove around town to look at Christmas lights. It was a great night.

Shrinky Dink Ornaments

Shrinky Dinks are so much fun. You may remember when C made shrinky dinks backpack bling. We had so much fun in the past with shrinky dinks, so I was very excited when I had the idea to make Christmas ornaments with shrinky dinks paper.

I cut one 8x10 piece of shrinky dinks paper in half and gave C and R each a piece to decorate. Before they began drawing, I asked them which way they were going to draw their pictures so I could punch a hole in the top. They used colored pencils to draw Christmas pictures.

C's picture is on the left and it is an elf surrounded by some of the toys he made for Christmas. I love the little toy Wolverine up on the top shelf.



R's picture is Santa's sleigh filled with presents. She was so excited to do this.

Here they are when they came out of the oven:

We really loved this activity, and I love that C's and R's art can be preserved in the form of Christmas ornaments!