Today was the last day of school before Christmas break, pajama day and it snowed for the first time this winter! A Trifecta! It was also Christmas craft day in the Kindergarten.
If you read my last post you will know that I planned to make Christmas Crackers with the kids. Clearly - I didn't know my crowd.
So I had all the paper cut (I used bulk Sparkle & Shine and Bulk Frosted) all the sook wang applied, I had cut several wintery & Christmassy shapes with our CTMH Cricut Cartridges and then pre glued then using my Zyron Sticker makers (Love these BTW and need a wider size, like 5"??) All the kids had to do was roll a 6"x12" piece of Cardstock into a tube, crinkle the ends, fill, tie and decorate. I wound up doing all the tube rolling, all the pucker pinching and most of the ribbon tying. However, we wound up with 19 Students eager to take these goodies home and pull the snaps! But the finished products looked nothing like what I had imagined. I'm a control freak. However, none of the kids seemed to notice and all seemed quite delighted with their finished work. So, I guess that's all that really counts.
This week has been so busy with Christmas activities, add a few unexpected emergencies (My husband, getting over Bronchitis, coughed while driving to work and he passed out - taking out 3 other cars. Everyone is okay, no major injuries thank GOD, but at least 2 of the four vehicles were totalled - my husbands brand new Pick-up truck included. Now he can't drive until the cough is totally gone, Can't risk that again)... Anyway . . .I had planned to make Reindeer Nose treats for my sons classmates as Christmas gifts . . but ran out of time. At 11:30pm last night I chose bed. I stand by my decision.
On the bright side my son has a hockey team of 20 players . . . so tonight we sat down and made these together:
We used mostly CTMH product . . . with the exception of the googly eyes and the treats of course.
First I perused the cartridges to see what shapes I could use for the Reindeer head. I chose the Owl from the Artiste Cartridge and the Antlers are actually snowflakes from the Artbooking cartridge. Each snowflake did 3 reindeer.
I made the noses by taping two rows of our red glitter tape and stick to a left over backing from the chalkboard sheets. These are great, because with normal cutting, the backing doesn't get cut, just the glitter tape. So you can see a small line across most of the noses - this is why, its actually two pieces. The nose size I made was 3/4". I could have gone smaller, or bigger by added a row of tape, but liked this size.
I used one of our discontinued journaling pens (please give us a replacement for journaling CTMH) to draw different smiles on each one. Ryan glued all the eyeballs on, can you tell?
I then stuck these all to the scalloped square card on the Art Philosophy cartridge. Its had to tell from my terrible pic, but I used the bulk Frosted paper for this, its the neutral coloured snowflake side. On the back is a sticker that says "Reindeer Noses", Merry Christmas from Ryan.
This was a far more appropriate craft level for a kindergartener. He glued the eyes using glue dots, and he glued the heads to the card with a glue stick. I then had him do the stickers on the back. We were able to work side by side for over an hour doing these, with him staying on track with what I was doing. Cutting, drawing, filling bags, stapling closed. Ryan had so much fun, he was talking to the reindeer and playing with them as he worked.
As the mom of three boys - craft time with my kids is not a regular occurrence. Nice to be able to make something simple, homemade and far from perfect but made by a Kid. I'm sure his team mates will agree!
Maybe next year I'll get smart and have the kids make these instead of crackers?
Merry Christmas Papercrafting Friends!
