Christmas time is here!!!! Kind of! It might be a little early, but we still decided to get into the spirit with a dollar store Christmas craft.
My kids love crafts! Which is good, because I love crafting. And it’s always more fun when you have someone to craft with.
However, crafting with kids is like baking with kids. So much wholesome “Donna Reed” mother-child fun……in theory. Often involving a Herculean mess, a testing of patience and listening skills, and a completely spent mama.
But some days the stars align. The Christmas music play is playing as the snow is falling, and mother and children craft in heavenly peace.
This is not a story of one such event.
Let us begin:
Christmas Ornaments:
I picked up clear glass ball ornaments and some ribbon at the dollar store. Grabbed some acrylic paint from our dwindling crafting supplies, and got right to it.
This is a super quick and easy craft. ?
We removed the hanger portion and set the ornaments in kid cups so they wouldn’t roll around as we squirted the paint inside the balls.
You need to add more paint than you might think, in order for it to cover the entirety of the inside.
My girls had fun turning and shaking the ornaments as the paint mixed. It was really fun when I turned my back for a whisper, and when I completed my revolution they had splattered paint all over my counters and their clothes?. So heads up, COVER THE LITTLE HOLE ON TOP, before shaking. Go ahead and tape that baby shut. Don’t assume they will instinctively cover it, or that they will heed your warning.
I had several glass balls, and after the paint shower, my patience was wearing thin. So for the remainder, we kept it extra simple.
On a couple of the ornaments the girls use their fingerprints to make Christmas trees and we topped with little stars. We filled some with Christmas confetti and some with fake snow.
Capital Christmas Tree
This was the year the Christmas tree for our nation’s capital was harvested right here in Montana. As it made its journey to D.C. it stopped in a town near, us so we went to see it.
They were passing out clippings from the Capital Christmas Tree (there were also photo ops with the truck driver, which we of course took advantage of). When we returned home I put the clippings in a cup of glycerin to preserve them. We decorated a special ornament to commemorate our visit to the tree??♀️, and filled the final glass ball with our tree bits.
(This ornament would be shattered two weeks later, when I went to plug in the tree lights.)
Little side story, about the day I became a local celebrity. Okay, so “local celebrity”, may be pushing it, but I did make the paper….. online edition?. There I was, cold and wet after once again trusting the forecast when it said sunny??♀️.
I was minding my own business, helping my kids sign the banner on the side of the semi transporting the tree, when a picture was snapped! I was not aware there was a photographer. But there I was, standing proud, on the 3rd page of our local newspaper’s online edition. ?