Paperbag Rudolph

Aren't they cute?  These were no small feat with 15 kids, but they all have one ready to go home next week!  Whew, what a project.  for full instructions, go here.

Christmas Tree's revisited

This is a project from last year. Mandee did them and didn't they turn out darling? What a fun craft, I had to reshare this. If your interested in making it, please visit this post. I wanted to share it early enought that you would have time to make some!

Marshmallow Roasters

I first of all apologize for the terrible picture. I couldn't get a good shot of these awesome tools. What are they you ask? They are homemade marshmallow roasters. Say goodbye to searching for sticks in the forest. I just used a welding rod, a dowel cut in fourths for handles. I drilled a hole in the top of the dowel and put the rod into the hole. No glue was needed. To make it look a little more rustic we stained the handles. We also made carrying cases for the roasters. Easy project and a great gift!

Paper Plate Frosty

Another one of those easy crafts that sometimes get forgotten. Sunday afternoon the boys wanted to do a craft. I glued the plates for them with hot glue and they did the rest. We used felt and foam for the the top hats and the eye's. Tyson insisted on a yellow hat. We found clipart on the computer for the carrots. A few buttons and we just used brown paper to make arms! And wala, you've got a snowman!

Paper Tree

The first graders at Red Mountain Elementary all had to bring home green paper trees to decorate. BayLee had so much fun and was so proud of her finished product that when she was done she said,"Mom!! You HAVE to put this on your blog!People would love to do this!" So, here ya go....couldn't argue with her.

She pulled out everything she would ever need to do a craft and put it all on this darling tree. She is so proud of it-as she should be. It is amazing that even the simplest of simple crafts are often forgotten. She just used good ole Elmers glue and went to town!!! After she took this picture of the tree she then did more work to it and put tiny marker dots all over the green parts that you could still see. :) (My favorite part of the tree is the Snowman she made out of pompoms)

So we usually do little, tiny, gingerbread houses. We use the milk carton as the base and it's a lot of fun. My friend, Shirley said that she premakes the houses, but that instead of frosting she hot glues them together! What a wonderful idea, I thought.

They look good and they were super sturdy, but it was not as easy as I thought it would be. First of all my thumb on my left hand will never be the same again!! I lost count of how many times I burned, it but it was a lot. I had a hard time getting the initial wall standing up because all it was glued to was the cardboard. Somehow I made the first one work.

On the second house I ended up using Popsicle sticks as braces. It made the second one a little bit easier to glue together. It took me forever to makes these. It was about 1 & 1/2 hours in the making. I also went through a ton of glue sticks. Shirley must have it down to a science, because it was nowhere near as easy as I had pictured it.

The finished product. Not as cool, as I would have liked them to have been, but they worked and they were very sturdy. No collapsing walls or caved in ceilings. They held up well to the frosting and the kids decorating them. We used regular old frosting from a jar this year and it did not work as well for putting the candy on. Here is a great recipe if you need a really stiff frosting for decorating.

2 eggs whites

1 pound Powder sugar

½ tsp. cream of tartar

Beat egg whites until stiff and add tartar and mix. Then add powder sugar and mix until creamy and stiff. Put in plastic baggies and cut the tip of the bag at the bottom corner to create a frosting bag. You can add food coloring to your frosting to add a little bit more color. Remember not to eat this frosting. It is for decorating only! Probably wouldn't hurt ya, but better safe than sorry!

We used this frosting for our Haunted Houses this year and it works really well. I don't think I will do regular frosting again. Just didn't work as well.

Messy, but fun! The kids love to decorate them and we have the tradition of taking them out and using them for target practice after the holiday 's!! Dual purpose! And they make for such festive holiday decor.

Mandees Christmas Tree

I know what you are thinking!! It is time to take the Halloween decorations down. Well, we decided to do something different this year. After 11 Christmases together, my husband came up with a new tradition this year-do a different themed tree each year. I think it sounds great-kinda crazy- but great. His birthday is Christmas day so I decided what the heck, I will let him choose this years theme.
The day after Halloween we were out on a date cruisin Target(what we call a date) and we were checking out the clearance for Halloween decorations. They were pretty much GIVING things away. My husband, Mr D., looked at me and said "Let's do our tree in the Nightmare before Christmas theme". I thought it was a wonderful idea and my oldest daughter LOVES this movie. We had so much fun shopping for the tree, we wanted to come straight home and decorate!
I made ornaments for the tree too.
*Since I originally did this post, I have entered a contest over at Tip Junkie. Go check it out!!!



These are the ornaments. I took Balsa wood,(used for rc planes-Mr D. has TONS) and printed out images from the movie. After that I used,any guesses?????? Of course, MODGE PODGE! I modge podged the images onto the wood and got this cool yarn from the Dollar Store. It was so much fun and it will look great on a garland for Halloween next year.

We found these darling little pumpkin and skeleton plaster baskets that we used as ornaments too. We also used Skeleton and spider garland instead of ribbon or rag garland. Again we will be able to use the garland for Halloween next year too.
We found the very last white illuminating pumpkin at Walmart. I dug and dug for it. It makes the perfect tree topper!

Here is the finished product! We used orange and purple lights and minature pumpkin lights. I know that this isn't "traditional" but we are really enjoying it. It is fun doing something different. I told my husband it has to stop at the tree so Christmas will be felt in our home! I wonder what the theme will be next year?............