making...

Who knew all we needed to inspire a full on boy crafting extravaganza was snow, cold and a hand drill!

Today we made a bunch of ornaments. They were super easy for kids to do, look nice, have different uses, and we played around happily this afternoon to see what we could make.



We started with a bag full of log slices (all about 1.25 - 2" in diameter), a rubber stamp and archival waterproof ink stamp pad, a hand drill, and both twine and red yarn. The boys stamped a bunch of the slices, and then also wanted to draw some snowmen using a sharpie.


They then drilled holes in the top (my boys would both happily drill holes all.day.long. if they could!).


They threaded twine through the holes and I tied the knots. Voila!


We also made a few batches using red yarn which look great.

For those discs they drew on, they stuck magnets on the back and now have snowman fridge magnets to gift!


Since we had a big bag of the wood slices, we also tried making some ornaments using pressed flowers and herbs from our garden. We had these ready in our press from the summer, but you can easily find pressed flowers at craft stores.

To make - using matte Mod Podge, we painted a layer on the wood, gently set the pressed plants down, and then super gently brushed a good layer of Mod Podge on the top to seal. The rest of the process was the same as the others. They look great!


We wrote the boys initials and year neatly on the back of each ornament with a Sharpie so we (and those who get some) always remember who and when!

My boys did a layer of matte Mod Podge on everything at the end (they couldn't stop! :)), but I don't think that if you are using waterproof archival stamp ink you need to seal those which were stamped ... but it can't hurt!

I love the projects that the boys can do without much help from me - it keeps them from getting bored, and they happily make away and really love that there are things THEY made which they can give to others. And these ornaments will make great presents. Of course, with kids, having something that is both simple AND looks good each and every time is just perfect for a relaxing crafty afternoon.



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wood craft.

Some of my favorite projects with the boys are those that start off with one idea and morph into something completely different and creative. We talked about making different things with scraps of wood we've been saving, but nothing really was taking shape until we pulled out the saw, miter and heavy duty wood glue over the weekend. We came up with some cool designs - a land-water boat, a race car, and a pickup truck.


We used bits and pieces of wood, parts from those wood craft 'kits', little tiny craft spools, wheels, dowels, and other scraps from the bottom of my 'wood' craft box. The boys sawed and carefully laid out the pieces (spending a lot of time putting pieces together so they looked like vehicles) and once we had each vehicle ready, they glued! We waited a day for that to dry, and then they sanded rough edges and put a base coat of white acrylic on and waited another day for that to dry (they actually looked really cool all white too).


Finally, we were ready to paint some color. I had put out a bunch of different colors of acrylic on the palettes, but once the boys saw the new metallic blue color I had found at our last craft store visit that.was.it. They wanted some bling.


So now we have some funky bright home crafted wooden vehicles that have been raced down ramps, ridden by finger puppets and bionicles, and which have been used to haul things around the house like LEGO people, marbles and pirate gold.


Of course making them was the best part. I saw the boys digging in the wood pieces box today to see what we have left. I have a feeling we have some new designs coming on.