A Crafty Christmas

Okay, so I have been meaning to, wanting to, trying to do this post for the last two Christmasses! I waited so late last year to show some of the cute Christmas crafts I did in 2011, that I decided I would just share them at Christmas 2012. Because surely by then I'd have a better handle on a regular blogging schedule & be more disciplined & regimented about it...right, right. But darn if I didn't let another Christmas happen & not have the time to blog about it. Well, no more excuses, you may see me posting Christmas crafts or our Christmas celebrations in June, but so be it, c'est la vie!

Ahem. So I actually do really enjoy being crafty, especially around holidays. I love making gifts & decorations, but apparently I have yet to figure out a way to balance time spent doing with time spent blogging (which is important to me simply as a means of scrapbooking & remembering. I know no one in blog-land is going to suffer because I didn't post a craft ;-)

Here's a little look at some of the decorations & gifts I have made the last couple of years. I especially love when decorations & gifts intermingle...in other words, I love making cute ornaments & what-not for teachers & classmates.

Last year Jack's class did an ornament exchange for Christmas. The girls & I had just been to a sweet Christmas tea where they made adorable "I Spy" ornaments, so we decided to do the same thing for Jack's exchange. We filled a clear glass ball (the clear acrylic ones work great for younger kids who may drop them!) with a couple different kinds of fake snow, one iridescent  one not. (You can also add in a little white rice for weight, if needed, but we didn't do that on this one.) Then we searched around for some tiny objects to put inside to "spy"...we came up with a LEGO, a googly eye, a cap eraser, a bead, a paperclip & an aqua shell (which actually was a sequin shaped like a shell, a little tricky!) We topped it off with a ribbon & tied on a little tag listing the items to search for. We then wrapped the ball in red tissue & put that in a cello bag on a cushion of fat marshmallows, just for fun! An ornament & an activity all in one!

Last year I was in charge of helping with Drew's 2 year old preschool class Christmas party. I wanted to do a little non-candy gift for each of the children, so I decided to make each child a personalized ornament. I found these cute smooshed round ornaments at Michaels (I say "smooshed" because they are not balls, but are a little flattened.) They are also unbreakable plastic, which is perfect for the preschool set. I wanted a simple, non-messy filling, so I decided to use yarn! I bought red & green yarn of various shades & textures & just stuffed several long strands down into the ornaments. I then used a paint pen to write each child's name on one side of the ornament & the year on the back. Once again, I tied each one up with a cute ribbon & packaged them in clear cello bags on a little cloud of mini-marshmallows. I had also found some cute felt cut-out Christmas tree ornaments on clearance at Target, so I tied one of those to each of the bags using a little left-over yarn. Very simple, but tres cute! 

Here are a few of the teacher gifts that I made last year...I purchased the clear hand soap from Trader Joes (because I like the shape of the bottles & the labels peel off fairly easily!) After removing the labels, I printed out a monogram for each of the teachers onto transparency sheets using a laser printer (ink jet printers won't work for this because the ink will run.) Then you just cut out the monogram, roll it up, & stick it down inside of the bottle of soap. Use the stem of the pump to kind of push the monogram up against the wall & position it nicely & voila! Pretty monogram hand soap that can be refilled & used over & over again! (I have been using mine for dish soap at my kitchen sink for over 2 years now!) Oh, I just found the original tutorial I used to make these monogram hand soaps here! It includes the downloadable monogram circle template that I used. (You add in whatever letters you would like in your own word processing program.)
For some of the teacher gifts (With 4 kids in school/preschool we have a lot of teachers to cover, but they are ALL worth it!) I purchased cute little white serving bowls (you can find great ones at Homegoods) & added the hand soap, a rolled up red hand towel & a gift card to a fun local jewelry shop. 

This Christmas found me making more ornaments, this time for Darcy's class. Once again I used the acrylic, non-breaking ornaments, but this year I found a cool new square shape at Michaels. For the filler I used fake snow (this was a little messy filling 18 ornaments!) & red & white large glitter...it was kind of like big glitter or small confetti. (I found it one year at Hobby Lobby near the Christmas glitter.) This year I used my Cricut to cut each child's initial out of sticky vinyl. I used a cheerful Christmas green color & used two different fonts...a curly one for the girls & a straighter one for the boys. I then topped them off with, you guessed it, ribbon! And a little tag so I could write each child's name on the back. I thought they turned out really well!

I was responsible for helping to plan Darcy's class Christmas party this year. The parents wanted to all contribute towards a class gift for the teachers. One mom knew that the teachers had mentioned wanting to get iPads, so we collected enough to gift each teacher the base cost for a new iPad-mini! (What an awesome & generous class we have!!) To go along with the cash, I made "Apple" trees for each of the teachers. I took a lovely potted rosemary plant & decorated it with lots of cute "apples"...an ornament made from a photo of each child in the class. I backed the photos with cute scrapbook paper & glittered the edges. Using the cute little IKEA standing picture frames (I love these frames, they have SO many uses!) I made a little sign for each "apple" tree. The trees made lovely centerpieces on the food tables at the Christmas party. During the party I presented the gifts to the teachers by reading a little poem I had written about them...I talked about how they are the "apples" of our "i"...and ended by saying we hoped they would use the money to get their own iPad-minis. It was very sweet & I think the teachers were very touched! 

Darcy's class also attends 5 enrichment classes each week, like science, fitness, art, drama and so on. I think the teachers of those special classes are often overlooked around the holidays since parents have little-to-no interaction with them. We thought it would be nice to remember each "specials" teacher with a card & very small gift card to Target. For the cards, I used my Cricut to cut out skinny Christmas tree shapes. I glued 3 trees onto each card. I took the cards to school at lunch one day & as the children finished eating, they each stamped a thumbprint "ornament" onto the trees. I wrote each child's name at the top of their print (sort of like an ornament hook.) Inside the cards I wrote a simple, yet personal note to each teacher giving thanks for all they do to teach our kids each week. I gave the cards to the classroom teachers to pass along to the "specials" & then they took it even a step further. The whole class went around hand-delivering the cards to each teacher, presenting the gifts while serenading them with a Christmas song. I think all of the enrichment teachers were very touched by this simple little gesture! I love spreading Christmas cheer!

For the elementary kids' teachers, I tried to think a little bit practical this year. We generally give a gift-card along with a little something personal to go with it. I had seen on Pinterest the idea of giving paper plates as a cute gift with the expression, "Let us do the dishes tonight!" I love it! So I picked up some festive plates, napkins & cutlery (I actually bought a value pack of red plastic cutlery & divided it up into cello bags...about 8-10 place settings per bag.) I wrote this little poem (& put it in my favorite IKEA frames again!)

The holidays are so busy,

time is always tight!

We would love to take

something off of your plate,

so please let us

do the dishes one night!

I tucked the gift card & plastic cutlery into these cute white tins from IKEA & monogrammed them with vinyl letters cut out on the Cricut. I love gift wrapping that is pretty & also useful, so I was thrilled to find these "beauty-full" burlap bags at Homegoods. I packaged everything up inside of the bags & as a bonus, they were super easy to carry! 

Last, just a bit of randomness...
Last year Darcy's preschool teacher gave her the photos (top left) spelling out her name in found objects...so cool! (Especially considering that we started that project 2 summers ago, but never finished finding letters to photograph!)
Top right::A cute hand towel that Darcy made last year in her preschool class. 
Bottom left "Santa Hat" fruit kebabs that I made for Darcy's class party this year. Actually, my mom did all the work assembling the kebabs for me, thanks mom! I think they turned out super cute with the strawberry & marshmallow "Santa hat"...and you know if you put anything on a stick, kids will eat it, so they were a hit! 

Whew, well I think that wraps up my Christmas craftiness for a good two years! Hope that you have enjoyed it & perhaps have been inspired for some craftiness of your own!