Felt Garland

Back in December I came across a blog that showed how to make a felt garland for the holidays. (of course, now I can't find it for the life of me). Anyway, this is a great craft to do with the kids and can be finished in one sitting if you have a patient child or over several days if not)

We chose three different colors of felt to use for our garland...white, dark grey and dark green. We cut the felt into 4 inch squares--the squares do not need to be perfect.

Then we used dental floss to string the felt squares (This is a must because it is pretty stong and trust me, you don't want your garland to break...see below.) Also, the cheaper felt is easier to push a needle through.

After you have finished the garland, add your embellishments. We used a Santa ornament from Michaels and gold bells. Simply use an ornament hanger to hang them from the dental floss between the squares of felt.

A close up view...

Big note to self: Make sure to tie your dental floss ends to something. I used washers for the ends of my garland. The washers made it easy to hang as well.

The first time I went to hang the garland and I was going to tie my ends to the nails on the wall. One end slipped off the nail and the end result was that every felt square came off the dental floss and ended up in a pile on the floor! I was not a happy camper!

This would be a great project to do for any holiday--just switch out the ornaments that you have hanging on the garland.

Happy Crafting!

Go here for more cool ideas.

Gift Tags

I'm hosting a dinner party tonight after I attend a basketball game, so I needed a quick craft for Crafting with Oona. I loved the Christmas trees on the village so I decided gift tags using the trees would fit the bill.

Cut triangle-shaped trees out of green card stock. Then cut out a trunk using brown card stock. Glue your tree onto a pre-made tag (I bought them at Michaels, but you can make your own out of card stock by going here.)

Add a button star and embellish with stickers or buttons.

Attach tag to your gift using ribbon.

You could also add snowflakes in the sky and packages underneath the tree depending on how long your children are willing to sit and create.

Happy Crafting!

Ornaments and Paper Villages

I am THAT mom who loves to do the craft project at all of the class parties. I have been involved with the twins' classes since Kindergarten and I have gotten the reputation as being "the crafty mom". Crafting with Oona started out as a way to have fun on Tuesdays and now has taken on a life of its own-other kids have found out about it and they want to come and participate. I am thinking about starting a craft club for the girls beginning in January so I decided to invite another girl in Ammy's class over yesterday. Enter Olivia! (and actually, Oona missed yesterday because she was under the weather.)

Being that I am THAT mom, I am always on the lookout for crafts that would be fun and easy to do with large groups of kids. Earlier this week, I was over at Kelly's Korner and she posted about ornaments that she made last year. I had a bunch of clear glass ornaments left over from last year so I bought several bags of paper shred (Michaels carries large bags of paper shred, but I found small bags at Target in their gift wrap section for 99 cents) and the girls went to town.

Apparently, we like to craft while sitting on top of the table.

These ornaments were super easy to make. All you do is stuff the ornament with the paper shred until it is full. We used a chop stick to push the shred through the little hole. Then we put the top back on and attached some ribbon.

Then adorn with stickers to personalize.

Some of the finished ornaments.

Since the first craft was super easy, I pulled out another craft from my closet--I bought these several years ago and thought the girls would have fun making them. I just did a google search and it appears that you can no longer get these kits. I ordered them from Paper Source. They do have a bunch of neat paper projects like an Amaryllis Flower Kit, a Poinsettia Wreath Kit, a Gingerbread House Kit, and a Mini Bauble Ornament Kit just to name a few.

The girls totally got into decorating the villages. The neatest thing is that they fold up into a card and you can send the village to someone.

Happy Crafting!

P.S. See how pretty the paper shred ornaments look on the tree!

Crafting With Oona

We did not have our usual "Crafting with Oona" session yesterday because Allie had to get two teeth pulled. (I would have prefered crafting as I HATE going to the dentist and just being in the office gives me the willies)

Anyway, this is the next craft that I plan to do with the girls: Retro Ornaments made out of recycled cardboard tubes (we seem to have an inordinate amount of toilet paper rolls in our house) and pipe cleaners.

Family Fun had this craft in their latest issue--There are so many things to do to make these unique and beautiful. Family Fun suggests painting the tubes before hand as an alternative to the natural look.

I am thinking of several different variations...

dipping the pieces in glitter

painting the tubes and just putting glitter on the tops and bottoms--glass beads would also be pretty (I like to use up supplies from past crafting projects when possible)

I'll post pictures when we finish. Send me pictures if you do this craft with your little ones at home! I'd love to see the results.

Crafting with Oona

Recently, I was reading Notes From the Trenches and saw that Chris had posted this picture of her youngest son wearing a turkey mask. I saw the mask and asked where she got it...the reply, in a $1 bin at Joann's Fabrics. I ran out to my Joann's, but there were no turkey masks to be found. Once again, I found myself saying, "I can so make that."

I downloaded a basic mask here. I then added my own turkey head and cut the entire thing out of brown felt. I bought large sheets of heavy felt at Michaels. Then we traced oak leaves on different colors of felt for the feathers. We made hair out of embroidery thread, a hat, eyes, a beak and a snood out of felt.

We glued everything together and this was the end result...

Happy Thanksgiving!