Canvas Art Decorations

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I meant to publish this on Christmas Eve for anyone looking for a last minute craft, but I ended up leaving my camera at my in-laws and have been enjoying family time, so here it is now. It isn't too late to make canvas art for this year. It would still capture the itty bitty hands or feet of your little one to admire next year. This would also be a great activity for any time of year, or to celebrate another special date, just pick a theme that would fit that date or time of year. 

Last Christmas I wanted to make something with Skyler that we could use as part of our future holiday decorations. On Christmas Day, we ended up painting his tiny six month old feet and making "mistle-toes" on a canvas. I finished the canvas with some ribbon and glitter paint. I loved the finished product and it makes me so happy every time I see it on our mantle this year. I decided that it was going to be a tradition of ours to decorate a canvas (at least until we run out of space for any more).

Skyler was thrilled with having his feet painted, as you can tell!

Since we did feet prints last year, we went with a hand print inspired canvas! I originally was going to do a wreath, but then we did the cut out wreaths for our door and window, so reindeer it was!

Excited to get started!

I wanted to try something different with Skyler, so I attempted to trace his hands on the canvas, but he didn't love it, so I pulled him onto my lap and we traced them onto paper. It was easier for him to see, and then it was alright if we messed them up a bit.

I traced the cut out hands onto the canvas lightly with pencil. Then I outlined and filled in the hands with a light brown colored pencil. I love the Color Sticks from Crayola for Skyler because they have no wood, so he can easily color with them and they come in a ton of colors. After coloring in the hands, I added some ears, tails and antlers.

The next part of our canvas was to decorate the background. Skyler got to open a Christmas present a day early - paint dabbers! We have used them a lot at ECFE class and he has seemed to enjoy using them, so it was time to get him some of his own. Skyler used a blue dot marker to make snow falling from the sky. Then we added some snowflake sequins that I swiped out from our "snow" sensory bin. I wrote his name and the year and drew some small snowflakes in dark blue, since the sequins are not really visible from all angles, it added some extra snow to the sky.

Here is our second annual multimedia canvas art.

This activity has been fun to do with part of the work done by baby and part of the work done by mama, but in years to come, it will be even better to see Skyler creating his own masterpiece. 

Handmade Ornaments

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As a kid, my favorite thing to open on Christmas morning was my ornament. Even still, ornaments are one of my favorite things to get. They are so special and capture special moments in time. I love to look back on the ornaments I have received, and being able to put them on my own tree this year was a lot of fun (the very very non-breakable ones!)

Last year for Skyler, I bought him an ornament (or two...whoops) and we made an ornament. I wanted to recreate that this year and have both a gift and handmade ornaments.

Last year, we got him this hand painted ornament and this hand stamped leaf 

 

And we made a simple salt dough hand print ornament for his first Christmas. 

This year, my baby boy is obsessed with anything vehicle related. We read books, play with, and watch out the window for anything that moves! So, for his second Christmas, I bought him a sweet train ornament and had it personalized. We got it from the General Store of Minnetonka.

I saw these Tissue Paper Mosaic Ornaments from Happy Hooligans, and knew Skyler would love to make them! We followed all the steps from the link, except we decorated whimsical trees instead of circles.

Skyler did really well with layering the tissue paper, but it was still a team effort. I helped him by using glue stick as he went along with the paper. He tried to paint on the glue, but it was pretty tough, so I ended up painting a coat of glitter glue on after he was done playing with the sticky fun!

These are our finished trees. They will get a hole punch and some ribbon, and be up on our tree by Christmas. We were going to make some for Skyler's cousins, but these two took awhile. We are going to bring our extra trees, tissue paper, and glitter glue along Christmas Day so the three cousins can have craft time together.

They make beautiful sun catchers

And are incredibly sparkly!

Jingle Bells

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The idea for these simple jingle bell musical shakers came from our ECFE class. Skyler had a blast this week playing with one as the group sang "Jingle Bells." We had a couple of plastic lids on hand at home, so we went out to get some bells to make some of our own and have had so much fun with these! The shakers in our class used a hole punch, which would be a great way of doing it so older children could string the bells around the lid. I used a knife to cut sets of two slits around the plastic lid and did the stringing of the bells.

All that you will need to make the jingle bell musical shakers is plastic lids (one of ours was from happy tot puffs and the other was from a yogurt container), ribbon, bells, and tape (put on the end of the ribbon helped to string through the slits on the lid).

Skyler and I had a dance party to "Jingle Bells" and some other Christmas songs when he woke up from his nap (our instruments made good hats as well!) Even though these handmade instruments are Christmas themed, I know he will enjoy playing with them year round.

A Visit with Santa

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We went to have pictures taken with Santa when Joe had the day off work last week. While part of me was hoping for a crying picture (I know it is terrible, but they are so cute and funny), we were lucky with great visits two years in a row! I love to compare tiny six month old Skyler to my 'big' 18 month old boy! His smile looks just the same, and it is hard to believe it has already been a year since that first picture!

On our way back home, baby boy just wanted to look at his picture. He smiled, pointed, and said "Santa!" the entire drive.

I love the hand painted frames from Exposures. Skyler's picture from last year is framed on our mantel and the 2013 frame is on the top of my Christmas list. We also have the Halloween frames from 2012 and 2013, and they looked great on our mantel in the fall!

Contact Paper Tree

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I love using contact paper with children. At one childcare center I worked at, we used it all the time. I picked up a roll to use with Skyler, knowing that I wanted to create a play activity on the glass sliding door in our dining room. As we were making the hand print wreaths, I knew exactly how to incorporate the contact paper with another 'decoration' for the holidays. I was able to prepare all of the materials during Skyler's nap, and we played with it when he woke up. It has been a lot of fun, and is getting more filled every day. It is definitely something that Skyler likes to go back to often.

For this activity I measured the contact paper to the height of the door, then traced out the shape I wanted, adding some green around the outside to make it look like a Christmas tree. I rolled the cut shape it in the opposite direction so it would flatten out a bit before taping the non-stick side to the door. I taped the star and trunk onto the door and we were ready to play!

All of the components of the tree, with the exception of the trunk (which was made with orange construction paper and brown crayon). We used the pom poms for awhile, but Skyler did not like them as much, so we have just been using the foam circles. 

I set this up as Skyler slept and just peeled off the paper to reveal the sticky side when he woke up!

He was so excited in his first moments playing with the tree. 

Starting to fill up! I cut the circles for the tree ornaments and the star from sheets of foam. Skyler enjoyed just playing with the foam pieces as well, trying to stick them to his shirt like he normally does with stickers. He now realizes that the foam pieces have to go on the tree to stick.

This is the most recent look for the contact paper tree. Skyler still goes back frequently and puts on new ornaments, or takes off and repositions already stuck pieces.

I especially like the tree because it is both a fun fine motor activity for Skyler to play with and a festive decoration that can be seen inside and outside of our home!

Handprint Wreaths

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We moved into our home last January, so this is our first year decorating for the holidays. I wanted our home to feel festive while keeping in mind that we do not have to go out and buy all new decorations to do so.

One of the things I struggled with this year was a wreath for our front door. I saw many wreaths that I would love to buy, but did not feel like spending the money on one. I thought about getting materials to make a DIY wreath. Finally I remembered an art project I wanted to do with Skyler last year - making a wreath out of hand prints.

We used green, red, and white construction paper with green and red paint to make the prints. Instead of doing the prints all on the same page, I mixed and matched the colors and layered them to make the wreaths. When the wreaths were finished, I put contact paper on the front and back, and cut it close to the wreaths to keep the one on the door dry and to keep them both looking nice throughout the season. I have noticed that the green construction paper has faded somewhat in the sunlight, but it still looks great!

It took many prints to make the wreaths, but luckily baby boy loves to make hand prints. We made more prints the next day to make smaller wreaths for gifts!

We listened to Christmas music and Skyler played with a new sensory bin while I cut out the hand prints.

The finished wreaths before the contact paper.

I love seeing the wreath on our front door whenever I drive on our street. It looks so bright and festive, and it is obvious that it is made from tiny toddler hand prints! Making the wreaths was completely free with the paper, paint, and contact paper we already had and it means so much more that Skyler and I made them!