Merry Mail Christmas card holder

Today we received loads of Christmas cards from people. However, we had a problem where should we place these as we had no Christmas card holder and the banister that we usually use has been overtaken by the advent calender! So me and Little Boo set to work making a Christmas card holder. 

After a bit of research on line I had an idea and wanted to make. First we painted a piece of a cardboard box black.  This is Little Boos favourite colour to paint with and I knew that it would look nice behind the material I decided to wrap the card with.  We painted the pegs with a mixture that Little Boo mixed with a combination of glitter and paint. Actually more glitter than paint. 

The Merry Mail sign  was done using a free Christmas font called Mickey's Merry Christmas   .  Little Boo chose the font when we were on the Computer she loves Mickey so I was not surprised. 

I then highlighted the font in Microsoft word clicked on the right button then clicked font then ticked outline.  This meant that Little Boo could colour this in. 

Once this was coloured it was just a case of putting this all together. 

We attached another piece of card to the back of the black piece just to reinforce it.  This also gave us the opportunity to sandwich the ribbon in between the two pieces of card. Little Boo enjoyed using the sellotape to attach this.

  

This is how it looked when all the pieces were attached. The silver part is a piece of card we wrapped with a silver paper. After this we just added the letters with a glue stick.  I have added eyelets to the top but you could just tie a ribbon to the top to hang this.  Little Boo later loved adding the cards with the pegs. 

Very simple snowman garland

We have made a very simple garland together ready for Saturday when we decorate! This is a simple idea and apologies that there are not many pictures as I did not think I was going to post this.  However, I thought that many would like this idea as it is simple to make and a nice decoration. All you need is paper plates, string. straws, orange card or felt then a black felt.

Little Boo added a nose by cutting out some orange card. We then drew on the rest of the face. When the plates were completed Little Boo cut up some straws.  These straws were then used to thread in between the plates.

This was a great idea to practice threading and cutting.  To make it easier I wrapped some sellotape around the string as it was fraying making threading challenging. After this there were no problems. Hope that you like the idea.

Snowman Bottle

I am really keen to show ideas that I think younger children would be able to do so have decided to show you this Snowman.  I remember when Little Boo was younger that she loved to pack things into bags and put things into containers so this really is a great craft for this stage.

All you need is

• A bottle
• googly eyes
• cotton wool
• Pipe Cleaners
• Buttons/ stickers
• Felt or up-cycled fabric
• Double sided tape (sticks better than glue to the plastic)

We did this activity just before bedtime it is not messy which makes a change :)

To start with make sure the bottle is clean and well dried.  Fill it with Cotton wool, we counted the wool into the container which was great for learning numbers. 

Screw lid back on either you could do this or the child as this is a great way to develop fine motor skills.  After this attach the googly eyes, add  nose and smile. Little Boo cut out the scarf herself and then managed to use the scissors to snip the frayed effect.  I am so pleased with how well she uses her scissors now mind you, I always used to love cutting up. We have some buttons that Little Boo chose three that she liked then stuck them on the bottle with double sided tape. All that was left then was to add the pipe cleaner arms which she stuck on with sellotape then the hat. 

Hope that you enjoy this activity we are using ours to place in the sideboard but I am sure that it could be hung up as it is not very heavy. I have already had requests to make a daddy one and a baby one!