Bead Decorations

We recently moved to a new house, and I needed some serious time to put things away without kids hanging off my legs begging for me to play with them.  After I put Logey down for a nap, I decided to set Monkey up with some pipe cleaners and beads. I knew this would keep him busy for a little while because he loves making patterns and this is something we had done awhile back with Cheerios for the birds!  I made a few shapes out of the pipe cleaners for him to start with:

He worked really hard on threading them on perfectly. He had to do each arm of the snowflake one at a time.  It is REALLY hot here right now (like 40C!) so we thought snowflakes would be appropriate to cool down!

Monkey ended up playing with the beads for over an hour!  He made a really neat candy cane (again with the patterns) some snowflakes and a few other Christmas shapes...we saw a Christmas movie the other night and it got him thinking about Santa again!!!

Of course, once he was done all of them, and got me to take pictures....he pulled all the beads off, and started all over again!!

It was great practice for him, and good for me because I got a whole lot of unpacking done!  And Logey got a really great nap too because it was sooo quiet in here!!

Easy Christmas Crafts

Today we started with some very simple and easy Christmas crafts!  Two reasons for this: 1 - Logey-bear was up most of the night last night (which really isn't different from any other night) but Daddy is on nights this week and I'm on my own - so I AM TIRED! 2 - It is Friday, and has been a long week! (again Daddy on nights this week)

First crafts was some foam Christmas trees (25 for $1) and glitter foam decorations ($1 for the box)!  Monkey decorated quite a few trees.  The foam decoration were stickers and the backing on them was a little tricky to get off, so this helped with some fine motor skills as well!

This were his 4 finished trees!

He still had decoration stickers left, so he wanted to decorate some Gingerbread men as well.  Each got two snowflake eyes, and snowflake mouths!  Then he used one sticker for each hand and foot!  I thought he would just stick them anywhere, but he is really into making faces right now.

Next was a super easy and super quick Candy Cane craft that our friends from Happy Hooligans shared with us.

All you need is a sheet of computer paper, some markers, a piece of tape, and a pencil!

First cut your paper into a square (it really makes it easier) and then create a pattern that continues on two sides.  Repeat it 3 or 4 times.

Next, flip your paper over and use your pencil to start rolling the paper. Start on the corner that has no pattern and roll right to the end.  Once you get to the end stick it down with a small piece of clear tape.

Take one end of the roll, and wrap it around your finger to shape it into a semi circle.  Shape it like the top of a candy cane.  I cut off the tip of the curve to make it look a little prettier.  And then I cut some off the end as well to make it about the size of a real Candy Cane.

Here is the finished product.  Pretty cute, eh?!  All four took me less than 5 minutes to make!

Next week, we will be doing salt ornaments and many other Christmas surprises!!