Christmas Crafting Round-up

 For my 4 year old, I came up with this barn.  She loves animals and has a lot of the plastic horses and cats.  This is already well loved.  I loosely followed the instructions here, but made it so that it folds out completely and has a mat that folds out on one side.  I'll do a post with more details on what I changed and with better pictures next week.

So our Christmas plan is always to do one book, one want (Santa takes care of that one) and one homemade gift by me.  This year we departed from that a little and added some 'needs', because these kids have been growing fast and they all needed something in the way of clothes.  

Anyway, a 12 year old and 14 year old boy are not the easiest people to craft for.  My 12 year old (math and all things related to 'pi' loving son) started me out on the idea of incorporating a quote somehow (Can you guess which one is his?). 

 I first thought of a shirt using the freezer paper stenciling method and then moved onto a canvas tote (the kind that cinches up) again stenciling the quote on.  In the end, I decided on just making them some "wall art" for their rather boring room.  I just printed out the quote, after messing around in word to come up with a layout that I liked.  Then I scribbled on the back of it with a pencil, so that I could transfer the lettering onto the canvas by tracing the quote.  Then I just carefully painted in the words, all the while watching 3 very cheesy Hallmark Christmas movies. 

My 14 year old did not volunteer any favorite quotes, so I went searching for one.  I wanted it to be by someone literary and famous, but wanted it to be slightly odd (that would be the payback for not being helpful), yet at the same time somewhat profound. 

Here is what I came up with: 

 What do you think?  Good choice for a quote?

For my 9 year old daughter I made her a bag to match her wool coat.

 I kind of combined these 2 tutorials (here and here) and added the strap and inside pocket.  All the fabric was left over from the 2 wool coats that I made.

 Another tradition is that the kids each get an ornament (the idea being when they get married, I will give them a box of ornaments and they won't have a bare tree their first year as newly weds).  Sometimes they are just cute ones I spotted in the store, other times they are ones from a vacation or ones that I've made.  This year over Thanksgiving break we went to the beach and the kids saw and played in the ocean for the first time in their lives.  I thought that was worth remembering, so I came up with this idea for their ornaments.  I found these little clear glass balls (with a flat bottom which were actually meant to be place holders) at JoAnn's.  I had gathered a bunch of small shells, so I filled them up and tied on a bow.  2 I filled with the same kind of shell and filled in full.  The other 2 have a variety of shells so I didn't fill those quite as full.

 Finally, here are the ornaments that I gave to friends, family and teachers.  I took the idea from here.  However, I don't have a fancy cutting machine and cut the nativity scene out with an exacto knife.  I just printed multiple silhouettes out, laminated them and cut them out in the shape of the glass bulb.  Then I slid it in and popped it out with tweezers.  Then I added some of the fake snow.  Again, I used the smaller glass bulbs I found at JoAnn's.