Felt Gingerbread Village

Setting up our felt gingerbread village was one of our advent activities last week.  O had fun at first, but she lost interest quickly.  I, however, had a great time.  I really love this little village!  It's so much fun to set up and decorate the houses.  I'm hoping that O will have fun with it later and that E will love it next year (this year she just wants to put the pieces of felt in her mouth, so it's set up out of her reach).






Here's a link to the directions for making this village.  Unfortunately, the pictures are missing...sorry about that. 

Velcro Ball

  The girls and I had a fantastic time playing with this velcro ball yesterday afternoon. 

To make this activity, I cut small pieces of sticky backed velcro (the sticky side) and put them all over the ball.  When I was making it, O was wearing a fuzzy hat that I knitted for her on a round loom.  I threw the ball at her head and it stuck...the look on her face was priceless!  After that I thought we probably shouldn't use the hand knit hats because the threads pull out with the velcro.  I thought the knit hats from the dollar section of Target would work well, but they really didn't.  I think the knit is just too flat.  However, we had a great time trying to get the ball to stick to O's head.  The novelty of having a ball thrown at your head and actually doing the throwing was very entertaining for both of them.




The gloves (from the dollar section of Target) worked well for catching the ball.




O's tutu worked best of all!




I saw this activity somewhere last winter...probably either in Family Fun magazine or on a blog.

What a Wonderful Night!

O did an amazing job as a cherub in The Nutcracker Ballet last night.  She glowed as she ran across the stage.  It was clear that she loved every minute of it, and she was not nervous at all! (I was much more nervous than she was!)

E also did an amazing job...she sat and was completely enthralled by the ballet for more than 2 hours.  AMAZING!  This child does not sit still.  She's a walker, runner, climber, pulling everything out of everything kind of kid, so I was very worried about how she would handle being so still and quiet for so long.  I talked to her several times during the day yesterday about how she was going to have to be very quiet while she watched the dancers.  She seemed to understand, and I guess she really did!  Hooray for our amazing girls!!!!

Tiny Angel Ornaments

O and I made tiny angel ornaments from Non Dairy Diary today as our advent activity.  I actually printed these angels last year, but didn't have time to make them.  They turned out so cute, and O loves them.








O cut out the circles, and I cut the head and wing cuts out with an x-acto knife.  We worked together to fold the angels.  This was a fun, simple activity that went along nicely with one of our Christmas books.

One Christmas Book A Day

A couple of years ago, we started the tradition of having O open one Christmas book a day.  Last year, I think I wrapped the books in tissue paper, and I wrapped them in newspaper the year before that.  Neither of those ideas was ideal as I really can't stand to wrap gifts in paper even if I can recycle it...I'm just not good at it, and they always look terrible. 

Every year, after Christmas, I buy lots of Christmas fabric on sale with the intention of making bags for the books.  This year it actually happened!

I cut the fabric into long rectangles.  My mom folded it, pinned it, and sewed each side.  She then cut the ends with pinking shears...done!  Hooray!  She finished all 25 bags and seemed to enjoy it!  THanks, Mom, you are the best! 

So, we've put aside the advent calender that I made last year (E has been slowly destroying it, and I am terrified that she is going to swallow a magnet), and we are now using the bags.  Each bag has one book and either a craft activity or a notecard with an activity written on it.  I've tried to tie the activity in with the book, but that hasn't always been possible. 

Wrapping the books in the fabric bags is so easy...I put a book in the bag and tie the end with a ribbon or fold the fabric over and tie a ribbon over it to hold it in place, so that it actually looks like wrapping paper. 





As the girls' open their book of the day, I take the bag downstairs so that I can use it to wrap gifts to put under the tree.  I'm hoping that we won't have a single piece of wrapping paper under our tree this year!  (although I'm just using these bags for the girls and Elliott, since we'll use them for our books next year, too).





O has really enjoyed searching through the packages to find the right number each day.  My plan is to choose the books for next year and go ahead and wrap them in the bags with an activity when I pack them away in January.  It will be great be organized next year!

Molly Monkey

I'm trying to share all of the handmade gifts we've made over the last few months just in case anyone still needs ideas for Christmas gifts.  Here's one that I meant to post months ago...
My mom and I made this sweet Molly Monkey for E's 1st birthday present.  The pattern and directions can be found at mmmcrafts.   This monkey was surprisingly easy and quick to put together for E's special gift.  Thanks to mmmcrafts for providing this free pattern!   

Nativity Felt Board Scene

There are lots of printable nativity scenes on the internet, but I think the one at Activity Village is the best!  The peoples faces are so sweet, and I love the colors.   We haven't used our felt board in a while, but I brought it out for this advent activity. 




I printed the nativity characters onto cardstock and glued a small piece of sandpaper to the back of each one.  I was pleasantly surprised by how well they stick to the felt board. 




Here's a close-up of a wiseman since BOTH of our girls are going to be wisemen at church next Sunday!



Take a minute to browse the Activity Village website...there is A LOT of good stuff there!

Christmas Playdough Gift Sets

These Christmas playdough gift sets have been in the works since last Christmas.  I started gathering my materials on the day after Christmas when I bought LOTS of Christmas cookie cutters (at least 50% off retail price). 

During the summer, I found the perfect 4 oz canning jars for storing the playdough.








I found the perfect rolling pins at Hobby Lobby a couple of weeks ago (I planned to make rolling pins from dowels that I  was going to cut and sand, but these were inexpensive, and they saved me a lot of trouble!). 





Yesterday, I bought Christmas sprinkles and emptied the sprinkles out for later use.  I filled the containers with red, green, and yellow yarn to use as icing and beads to use as sprinkles on the playdough cookies.  What fun!

Homemade Playdough

O and I have had fun making chocolate and sugar cookie playdough this week.  We love making playdough...it's almost as much fun as playing with it!

O loves to mix everything with her hands.  She leaned down to get a good whiff of the cocoa and breathed in a little too much cocoa dust!  This playdough smells divine!




Here is the chocolate playdough recipe.  (I was going to include it in this post, but that seems silly since I'm in a hurry :)

The day after making chocolate playdough, we made sugar cookie playdough.  The recipe is similar, but we left out the cocoa and added vanilla flavoring and white glitter.  We also cooked this playdough on the stove instead of pouring boiling water into the mixture.  Here is the basic playdough recipe. 

O really enjoyed pouring and mixing in the glitter!

Personalized Paper Dolls AND Another Giveaway!!!

I saw these personalized paper dolls on Sandy Ford Design on Etsy and fell in love with them.  I emailed Sandy and asked if she would like for us to review a set.  She agreed, and I emailed her a picture of O.  I was so excited when she emailed me the paper doll and clothes!  (O was excited, too, of course!)

Sandy started designing these dolls last year when she was trying to think of a great non-plastic gift for her daughter's 5th birthday party.  They were such a hit that she started a business from it!

Immediately after seeing O's doll, I knew I'd need to order a set for E.  Since they are pdfs, I can print both dolls for both girls.  Also, if we lose or tear the dolls or clothes, we can just print more...I REALLY love that aspect of these dolls!




I printed O's doll on magnetic paper, but I liked it so much on lightly textured cardstock that I haven't even cut it out of the magnetic paper yet (I think I'll save the magnetic paper dolls for Christmas).
 


I wasn't crazy about the idea of using the tabs to hold the clothes on the doll, so I was excited to find the idea of using a sticky strip at the Lily & Thistle website.  The sticky strip works great!


I'm so excited by all of the things that I can make with these dolls of my girls.  Their personalized Christmas ornaments for this year will definitely be paper dolls!



Another great thing about these dolls is that Sandy is so great to work with...I emailed her several times to ask if she would make minor changes here and there to make the dolls perfect.  She did this happily and without hesitation.




As soon as O saw the paper dolls, she asked if we could get on to look like Laura (Ingalls...she still so obsessed with Little House on the Prairie).  She'll be getting a set of "Laura and Mary" paper dolls for Christmas, and I know that she is going to have so much fun having a doll of herself play and interact with Laura and Mary.  We may have to write a new book...Laura, Mary, and O! 




Sandy is offering a free paper doll set with color in costumes to one lucky reader.  Go to Sandy's Etsy shop and take a look around.  Come back here and tell me what you liked over there.  I'll randomly choose a winner on Wednesday.