A Cobweb Christmas

We love our Catholic Mosaic book written by Cay Gibson. Amazon tells us, "A set of study guides for parents and teachers who wish to share Christmas-themed picture books with their children. 30 children's books are featured with discussion questions, vocabulary, and enrichment activities. Includes an extensive list of over 200 Christmas picture book titles, crafts, poems, and recipes."

We have been enjoying the books recommended in this book for many years.

And I always seem to have a new group of littles to enjoy the books and activities with.

The books we enjoyed over the last few days were: The Cobweb Curtain

The Christmas Cobwebs and

Cobweb Christmas:The Tradition of Tinsel.

All the stories incorporated the ideas of the goodness of spiders and how they helped the baby Jesus or helped those who helped celebrade Jesus' childhood.

 I  found a great printout for a spider snowflake.

We very carefully cut out our spiders and when we unfolded them we were so happy to find beautiful paper spiderwebs, 

It take a lot of finger muscles to cut out the paper which was folder many times.



Success!!

We glued our finished spiders onto black constructions paper. We then used out finger to spread on glitter glue.  

We found a great print  of our spider that we made into Christmas snowflake.

Some to the spiders and a couple of the wonderful  books

Now, I am one to catch the spider and put it outside to "be with it's family" 

I was so happy to find the simple craft to make a spider suitable to every Christmas tree.The simple dirctions for making a jingle bell spider craft can be found here..they are very cute. 

Homemade Orange Pomander

 We haven't made orange pomanders in a few years...and I just love the Christmassy  smell these give off-it's one of my favorite smells. 

Start with a good sized navel orange and whole cloves.  Hopefully you can find a nice Amish store to pick up the cloves, because if not this is a VERY expensive craft.  At Walmart I priced the whole cloves at almost $12.00 a jar. 

 Stick the cloves into the orange.  We like to use a toothpick to  make a little whole in the orange skin and then the clove slides in nice and easy.

 The kids took a couple days of completing their oranges...it's kind of boring work after a little while, so it is a great thing to do while watching a a Christmas movie.

 Once completed..(or as completed as the kids can manage) wrap the orange with pretty netting.  I found this red netting at Hobby Lobby.  It has nice large openings to let the yummy smell through.

I then tied a ribbon tightly around the ribbon. 

At the same time I was putting the ribbon around the netting I strung a piece of ribbon for hanging the pomander.

Picture perfect!

I then hung the oranges in our front windows.  It's gorgeous in our window in front of our many paper snowflakes. 

Merry Christmas everyone!

Pom Pom Ornament

 I saw this super simple pom pom ornament over at Art Projects for Kids.

All you need for this quick project is:

2.5 inch styrofoam balls

pom poms of your choice

dress pins

ribbon

 I pinned the ribbon used to hang the ornament on the ball before the kids began to add the pom poms.

 Simply pin the pom poms to the ball.

 Luke picked sparkley gold pom poms for his ornament.

 I love the look of purples Grace used.

Even the big "kids" got in on the fun.

You've got to love simple, pretty crafts that will get used on our beautiful Christmas tree.

Crocheted Candy Cane Covers

These came out so cute....perfect for our church's craft sale.

I found the pattern here: http://www.crochetmemories.com/blog/victorian-candy-cane-cover/

 

Happy crocheting everyone!

Pomander Orange--2010

The house is smelling heavenly.

We are making the yearly pomander oranges.

I decorated oranges with a pretty Christmas ribbon with long pins.

I gave the kids big yarn needles to make "starter holes" for the whole cloves.

(Whole cloves at Wal-mart, in a teeny tiny container, cost $7.99. If you are lucky enough to live near an Amish store, check out the spice prices---I spent $1.51 for enough whole cloves to make 3 pomander oranges.)

I believe these two little folks put more than 3/4 of the cloves into the oranges....the big kids quit quite early in the process.

I found this tulle in the wedding section of Wal-mart.I used 4 strips of tulle to tie up the pomander.

This is definetely on of my favorite, all time smells.

Luke admiring his hard work!!

A Beautiful Jesus Suncatcher

I know I have seen this "somewhere". If you know where the original post is, please let me know so I can link and give credit to the creator!I had everything to do this here in the house this morning.

All it takes is black construction paper, clear contact paper, and tissue paper.

(If you use many different colors of tissue paper it wouldn't be specific for Christmas)

Place the black construction paper "frame" onto the sticky side of the contact paper.
It is very helpful to tape the contact paper to the table to prevent it from sticking to everything--especially the children.

Place the letters backwards onto the contact paper....be careful about this or a letter may be backwards. (See example far below...;-)

Stick small pieces of tissue paper to the contact paper, covering completely.

Kimberly working hard.

After completely covering the clear contact paper with tissue, glue another black construction paper frame to the back of the project.

I then cover the entire back with another piece of clear contact paper.

Hang it up in a window and enjoy.

Gracie's finished product....too bad there isn't any sun to show the "sun catching" aspect of this craft.

They are beautiful---a little sun showed up for Kimmy's suncatcher.

Luke's shows the importance of careful letter placement.
(Although, don't tell the others, this may be my favorite.)

Our beautiful door.

Homemade Nativity Blocks

I first saw this idea here. There are few things that hold the attention of children more than a plain set of blocks, unless you add the Nativity characters to the blocks.
This opens up a whole new world of Christmas fun....and the kids can't break this Nativity scene. All that you need are blocks, Nativity stickers (I found our sticker books at Michael's Craft store) and Modge Podge....or you could use watered down white glue.

Apply the stickers to the blocks and then liberally paint on a layer of Modge Podge.
This will make the stickers remain in place for a very long time.

Gracie's beautiful angel.

The whole set of block drying....while eager hands wait their turn to play, play, play.

I hope everyone, young and old, is having a very meaningful and prayerful Advent.