Kids Craft: Christmas charm bracelet and peppermint stripe jingle bracelet

Kalla and I made a couple of holiday bracelets for her and Maressa.

This first one we made shrinky dink charms for.  Kalla is going to make 3 more of these for her bffs.

To make this bracelet we started with the charms.  I printed off some holiday images on paper that would fit in a 1 1/2" circle punch.  Then I traced the images with a black sharpie marker onto white shrinky dink paper.  After that, Kalla colored them with colored sharpie markers. 

After I traced them, Kalla colored them with colored sharpie markers.

Then I cut images out using a 1 1/2" circle punch and a small hole punch in the top.

Now we baked them per instructions (they took less than 2 minutes).

Once cooled they need to get a clear acrylic coat on top to prevent moisture from messing up pictures.

After they are dried I put a tiny metal hoop on each one (forgive me those who do jewelry, I don't know all the tools/supply lingo for jewelry making).

Then they were strung on with these lime green beads (from Walmart) and tiny red and pink seed beeds.

I also made this peppermint stripe jingle bell one for Maressa.   I simply put those ring whatchamacallits on tiny bells then strung together red and white beads too.

Here's all the fancy tools we used.  I use those jewelry pliers to attach all the rings on the bells and charms.  The charms used a slightly bigger ring...I have a package of 3 sizes.

A close up of those ring things for those who don't know what I'm talking about and need visul aid as I do when it comes to looking for unfamiliar crafty items.  ;)

Yummy Teacher gifts...all bottled up!

Foud this cute gift idea in a magazine and did this for a couple of our preschool teachers.

To make your own, you need a bottled drinks in a cardboard carrier.

I found the Starbucks Frappuccino to work best and the bottles necks aren't to skinny to fit in yummy snacks.

So to begin, I peel off the front and back labels.  Then stick them and the caps in the dishwasher.  There will still be a sticky film on the bottles where the labels were.  Use Goo Be Gone to remove the stickiness and I found the ink printed exp date on the bottle to come off with it as well.  Once the stickiness is gone I washed the bottles again in warm water.  If you want to skip this step you could always use pretty paper to cover this area, but I liked the whole clear bottle to show off treats and peppermints and whatnot.

Now to cover the cardboard carrier.  I first secured the bottom that likes to move around with regular tape.  Then I used the box to make templates of Christmas paper to cover the carrier.  I did rectangular pieces for the front and back and then 2 separate pieces for each side.  Once I had templates for each size and shape, I used those pieces to make more to have enough tocover the whole thing.  To attach all this fun paper to the original carrier I simply used my favorite tool:  double sided tape.  :)

Then I punched holes and used double sided tape to attach to the tops of the caps.  Filled jars with teachers fav snacks and tied a festive silver ribbon.

This would be a fun way to present small office supplies or any other small items.

And here is another set of teacher gifts we did:

I got these cute boxes from Target dollar spot.

And put some goodies inside.

Inside I put a small jar of snack mix.  Then I included a suggestion card to resuse jar when snack was gone.  I added a baggie of rock salt and tea lights to put in the jar when it's empty.  We also included some yummy homemade chocolate dipped marshmallows with peppermint sprinkles.

Homemade Peppermint Mocha...new addiction on the rise

To make your own at home:

Brew strong coffee--I use a bold Starbucks blend and brew 4 tbsp to 3C water--this will make a couple of mochas.

While brewing, pour 1/3-1/2C milk (depending on size of mug) into your mug.  Now add a tsp of  choc syrup or Quick or cocoa powder.  I have tried the syrup and cocoa powder and I like how there isn't any graininess with the Hershey syrup version.  Now warm the milk with chocolate in microwave for 1 minute.  Fill mug the rest of the way with fresh brewed coffee.  Now add 2-3 tsp of peppermint syrup (recipe to follow) and stir.   For extra special mocha, add whipped cream (I use fat free) and crushed candy cane on top.

Peppermint syrup:

Put 2 C granulated sugar in a medium sauce pan and 1 C water.  Heat and stir til sugar is dissolved.  Pour into a reusable container and let cool.  Add 1 1/2 tsp of pure peppermint extract.

If you don't want that much peppermint flavored syrup like me, I divided my heated simple syrup into 2 containers and made one peppermint and one vanilla.  If you do this, reduce peppermint extract to just under one teaspoon (this extract is strong stuff!).  And add 1 1/2 tsp to the other half for vanilla syrup to make yummy vanilla lattes with.  :)

Enjoy!

A homemade ornament post

Ornaments from this year and years past made by someone in this house.  :)

Felt ones

Pom pom ones

Wire ones

Shrinky dink ones

Clay ones

Craft foam kit ones from Target

Suncatcher ones

I love our handmade decorations on the tree.

Ane we all enjoy reminicing about all of them.  Many are preschool memories too.

2nd Annual Cocoa & Crafts Party

My favorite party of the year.  This is my 3rd year hosting a girl's night holiday party.  The first was a cookie exchange.  It's now morphed into just a food and crafts deal.  Kids are a little jealous they aren't invited.  For them it's a McD's picnic with dad in my bedroom and a holiday special on tv.  ;)

This year I was either not as organized or a litte too ambitious or some of both.  I was not ready at party time, didn't have stuff done that I wanted and didn't get many pictures.  But that's ok.  I have great friends and the first comers jumped right in to help chop veggies and whatnot.  Plus we are quite casual and everyone just goes with the flow.  Lots of chatter, laughter, eating and crafting.

On my menu this year I had:  cranberry meatballs, bacon wrapped apricots, bruschetta, manchego twists, pastry wrapped brie with apples, grapes and crackers and veggies and spinach dip...

and mini snowball cupcakes, mini vanilla rolled cookies, white choc dipped oreos with sprinkles, choc dipped strawberries, brownie bites with whipped cream and crushed peppermint candy and homemade marshmallows with choc and crushed peppermint (these were SO good!).

I really love serving bite sized desserts because if others are like me, you wanna try a little of everything!

Cokes in the bottle...the only way to go!

And a hot cocoa bar with peppermint sticks and mini homemade snowflake marshmallows.

Then there was crafting.  Supplies to make fun gift tags....stamps, embellishments, pretty papers and big paper punches.

Also, mini paper houses and paper tree ornaments.

We used the template in this post for the tiny houses.  We just used pretty cardstock papers to make them.

And we used Allsorts felt tree pattern to cut paper trees.  Then glued on pretties and ribbon to hang.

And lastly, the party favors.  I put a little snack mix in some small jars...more on this in a few days as I'm using this as a base for some teacher's gifts.   :)

A Christmas Book and some fav holiday craft links

Ok, so I'm trying to catch up here on the 'ole blog.  :)

Getting all decked out and up over here and trying to be organized!

So last week I made this notebook for me to do just that.  I can't tell you how many Christmas magazines I've collected over the years with dozens of dog-eared pages.  And then there are the templates and ideas I've printed up from other lovely blogs that are spread all over the craft room. 

So I made a cover for this plain 3-ring binder and added a lot of page protectors.

Inside I have slipped torn magazine pages, templates and other goodies in the clear sleeves. 

Also threw in torn pages from catalogs of gift ideas for kids or whomever.

Here are some of my fav holiday crafts this year:

Allsorts felt trees

Allsorts stwirl felt trees

Snowglobe soaps

Handprint snowman ornnaments

Favorite printables

Holiday subway art

Gnoma notes

*Printables-- I print out one and put in binder then make copies when I need...that prevents having to search my bookmarks to find what I need/want.

And a couple of things I'm eyeing to get the girls:

Connectagons Fairies

Just like me necklace