Bring on the Festivities!

I got a little sleep last night and am feeling a bit more like myself today. And so we...

...strung popcorn and cranberries onto yarn to make garland! Actually, popcorn is impossible to string. We broke like 15 pieces of popcorn with our darning needles before I finally had the brilliant idea to use packing peanuts instead. They worked much better, and I figured it was a good way to recycle a few of those crazy things. Plus the girls were thrilled that they got to eat that giant bowl of popcorn.

While the girls worked on their garlands, Kevin and I cut out this garland. Isn't is cute?

While I was hanging all of the new garland, the girls abandoned ship and went upstairs to play something elaborate with dress up clothes, stuffed animals, library books and Barbies.

Kevin was kind enough to clean up the mess above, plus the insane mess the girls made on the floor snipping paper to make sweet ornaments for the tree.

And then, since the mess was all cleaned up by someone else, I made the girls come back downstairs to make clove oranges.

We have made these every year at ECFE, and the kids have always needed help getting the cloves into the oranges. This is the first year since we became parents that everyone is too old for ECFE, but I wanted to continue the tradition. And it was fun! The girls made faces with the cloves! So creative!

That's all the time we had for crafts this evening.

A Little Decoupage

All week, the weather was cool and rainy. So I decided to have a craft project party. I figured we needed some organized fun inside. Except that the sun came out.

Not that I am complaining! We just hauled the supplies out to my green table in the yard. I didn't think to grab my camera until the big kids were done and had moved on to the swingset, but I did manage to capture Tara, Charity, Josie and Dana.

Here are our candle holders. Aren't the pretty? We used Mod Podge and tissue paper to decorate glass jars from the recycling bin, and then we tossed some tea lights into them. The kids enjoyed this, but so did the moms.

Nora covered her jar in pink and blue hearts. Dana preferred to rip chunks of tissue paper to her liking, primarily in purple. She did allow some hearts on hers, too, and then added some green for good measure.

I have a whole lot of Mod Podge left, and I am thinking of more fun ways to use it. It's cool stuff!

Snow Day Valentine Crafts

The weather guys hyped up this ice storm we were supposed to have today. They talked it up for days, and the school guys decided to cancel classes pretty much everywhere in the region. They didn't want thousands of kids riding buses home in treacherous conditions. Of course, it only ended up raining for a little while, but at least nobody got hurt (that I know of anyway). And I suppose there is still the potential for more rain and more freezing.

Anyhoo, Nora's teacher sent home a note last week telling us that we were to make a Valentine's box at home and bring it in this week. So that was our major activity today.

I started things off by tracing some heart cookie cutters onto sponges and cutting them out. Then I got really creative and cut an empty toilet paper tube in half so they could make circles, too. I got some containers and lids out of recycling and squirted in some glitter paint in Valentine-y colors: pink, purple, red, silver and gold. And the girls got busy stamping hearts and circles onto big paper.

Dana is safest painting in her underoos because she is not that clean about it. It saves me some major laundry headaches. I have plenty of those as it is.

Then they went outside for a couple of hours to play in the soft, melty snow. They brought out some Barbies and horses and occupied themselves for a lovely amount of time. I stayed inside to vacuum and wash the floors and strip the beds. That is how I get my kicks on Mondays. Woohoo!

Eventually, the paint was dry and the girls were ready. We took two empty coffee cans and covered them with the fancy glittery stamped paper. Then the girls added paper hearts, gold foil hearts, ribbon, yarn and marker. I love that they have to pull all sorts of stuff out of the craft box to see if it will work: pipe cleaners, pompoms, oogly eyes. You can see Nora putting a Valentine note into Dana's coffee can. Pretty sweet!

The note says this:
hape valintins day dana I hop you hav a gud vanintinz day
fram Nora
lov Nora

I am head over heels for that spelling. Probably I should want her to have perfect spelling, but this is only going to last a little while and I am enjoying it while I can.

The girls steal a smooch while showing off their completed cans. They found this pretty entertaining. Now I need to go put it all away because dinner is almost done and, well, you saw what our table looks like. I am half hoping for another ice storm day tomorrow so we can make Valentines for Nora's classmates.