Christmas crafting

Every once in awhile I get this great idea that the kids and I should do crafts. Or, in reality in December I feel obligated to put something cute on the grandparents presents from the kids. I put aside the fact that G has no clue how to use scissors, and A covers herself in marker more than whatever she is working on and aim to create something cute.

Today was the day. I'd done some late night browsing on Pinterest and found a craft that we had all the stuff for at home. (Yay free!) I figured it might take an hour tops.....I should have known from our gingerbread house disaster.

While grocery shopping with both kids we came across the box for this gingerbread house and oh did we HAVE to have it. Knowing the kit itself contains crap for actual candy I hit up the bulk section and bought a bit more. I also bought icing, the kids are not capable of taking much direction. It was basically make the roof structurally sound (it only collapsed twice) and let the kids go nuts. The roof may actually be supported by a jube jube, last year it was a toothpick, not shocking I'm not an architect.

I have the gingerbread house up on the buffet in what I thought was a safe spot. It turns out G is able to reach the house, and A has discovered how to move boxes to climb onto to reach it herself. Of course they think they are sneaky doing so. In the span of an hour today from G I heard:

"A go distract mom and I'll go get us candies!"

"Mom, I think you should make a phone call"

"Mom I think you should go clean by yourself in that room over there"

It got to the point where I left the water running in the kitchen so he thought I was in there and actually stood directly in front of the house. I scared the shit out of him. It was awesome. He turned and ran so fast I thought he was going to run straight into a wall. Oh, the joys of having kids.

Anyway - back to craft time. I decided to try and make artsy Christmas ornaments to hang in windows. I took clear contact paper (I think that is what it is called? It's back peels off and it's sticky) and taped it down sticky side up. I had cut random shapes out of red & green tissue paper and then let the kids at it to create their masterpieces. A took her time placing every shape in the perfect spot, G tossed everything on and was done in two seconds.

The HA totally photo bombed

I then placed more contact paper on top and cut the sheet into circles. Next came an ornament shape in white construction paper followed by black, a bunch of glue & some yarn. The trick was getting it so that the white/black circles were even so when the light shines through you don't have a shadow behind any of the art.

Anyway, the one hour project took like three. Done & done until next year - when maybe they have more art skills!