Crafty Christmas

This Christmas hubby and  I were in charge of the Kid's Christmas party for his work.  Below you can see some of what we came up with for the party as well as for our Christmas at home.

This is a cup craft.  I got the idea off Pintrest but changed it up to make it simple and non-messy.  I made holes in the tops of all the cups before hand and cut the pipe cleaners at about 2/3 length.  Each cup needed one pipe cleaner, one bell, one bead, and stickers.  The Christmas bells and stickers (even jeweled stickers) could be found at the dollar store.  I had wooden beads already but I am sure you could find similar beads at the dollar store also.  That's it.  Hang down one end of the pipe cleaner to hold the bell and bend the other (short end) inside the cup so it won't come out.  It's a super simple, no glue, ornament craft for youngsters.

This is another I found on Pintrest lol.  I picked out the felt and my mom stepped in to help out and she made the tree and ornaments.  I went to Joann's Fabrics in NY to buy the felt and I was elated to find sparking green :)!  So, that is my tree- a nice green felt with a shimmer of embedded glitter, awesome!  Mom added a few touches to the ornaments and after the party my kids had fun with it until it got packed into the Christmas decor.  By the way, this was a hit with the youngest ones at our party!

We got up and ate our Christmas breakfast, opened Christmas stockings in our jammies and then we told the kids they had a big gift waiting down in the playroom.  So, they tore off down the hall and got tangled in Christmas streamers lol.  The middle child just went right under while the oldest tried to figure it out.  This was a fun last minute idea since I couldn't wrap their gift.

Another Pintreset idea.  Yes, I know it would have been better if I had excluded the word has.  Bad things happen to your brain at 5am if you haven't slept.  Just the same, I think the idea was a good one.  Small bags and dual sided tape from the dollar store, fill bags with mints, add printed/cut out tags.

There are also other minty occasions - encouragement, refreshment, enjoyment, commitment, engagement...

My husband helped me put together the ones you see below.  I could not find regular Christmas m&m's where I live but I did find some super expensive peanut Christmas m&m's.  It's a cute poem I found on Pintrest.  I liked having these for the kids to grab at the party.

Thankful Turkey

Back before Thanksgiving I found a pin for this thankful turkey on Pintrest.  I cut everything out and got it all ready for the kids.  My 2 oldest wrote things they were thankful for on most the feathers and my youngest scribbled on a couple too.  Together we worked on completing the project and it was a success.  There are a few differences between ours and the one on Pintrest.  Ours is not as pretty and may have been a bit nicer if I had read the instructions lol.

Kids Paint

1 tsp water, 1 tsp dishwashing liquid, 1/2 tsp food coloring and you have paint for the kids.
Kind of wet paint but kids had fun and made some good art.

Experimental Mice

Here I have two Pintrest ideas combined, the mice of course and the dying of eggs.  This was too much fun :).  I had everything I needed so I had fun and made the kids a snack of edible mice.  First I boiled eggs, then peeled eggs and covered in water with about 5 drops of black food coloring for an hour. After that I cut eggs in half lengthwise, used slivered almonds for the ears, string cheese for the tails, cut string cheese for the cheesy center, and used a toothpick dipped in food color for the eyes and nose.  A caution with eyes and nose - the color will bleed if you use much.  The picture would have looked better if I had alternated gray and white mice but no one is perfect!  Kids devoured the mice!

Salt Glitter

Warning : you should supervise your kids, salt is not safe, ingesting as little as 1 level tablespoon (ingested all at once) can cause seizures in a toddler and 2 tablespoons can be fatal.

Salt glitter is easy, 1/4C salt and 4 drops of food coloring.  Mix well.  Air dry on wax paper or microwave for one minute.  Store in airtight container like a spice shaker or jar.
Salt glitter is not as sparkly as glitter but it was a fun project for us.

As you can see, it was a hit with the kids.  I used plastic egg holders to give the kids their own glitter, egg cartons would work too.  I wonder what else I could use colored salt for....

Pancake Batter Fried Chicken

You can do this recipe with or w/out the buttermilk, I have done both.  My family doesn't like buttermilk but I had some left from the Peanut Butter cake I needed to finish off.  I didn't notice that the buttermilk changed the flavor but it did seem to make the chicken moist.  I let the chicken sit chilled in the buttermilk for a couple hours.  This time I used sweet potato pancake mix which gave the chicken a sweeter flavor.
I cut up 3 large boneless, skinless breasts into strips, soaked them in buttermilk (optional) .  In a bowl I combined 2 cups of pancake mix 1.5 tsp salt, 1.5 tsp pepper, 2 tsp paprika mixed it together coated the chicken pieces and dropped a few at a time into our pre-heated fry-daddy thing.  You could use a bag to make it easy (shake-n-bake) and change up the spices to your liking.  I have used regular pancake mix and both are a hit with the family.

Mario Kart Cake

This was my boy's sixth birthday cake and my first attempt with fondant.  I would have made more pretties but I ran out of time so this was it.  The turtle shell was a doughnut hole cut in half and covered in fondant.  I got the marshmallow fondant recipe off Pintrest and another off the web and worked them together.  I made the buttercream underneath with green color so it wouldn't stand out.  The most trouble I had was moving the fondant to the cake and was VERY frustrated at this stage, it was all done except putting the fondant on the cake.  The rolling pin just didn't cut it so I managed to find a long skinny pole (washed it) that went to the bottom of an umbrella for my kids sand table.  It worked!  This was the completed project, just wish I had had time to add a bit more color.  The star cookies were supposed to be iced yellow but again I ran out of time.

Father's Day Past

These brownie cupcakes are something I made for Father's Day 2011.  You need black food coloring or make your own mixing colors (I did).  Here is the link for the original idea with all the details: LINK.

Peanut Butter Passion

There is some satisfaction from completing a pin on Pintrest lol.  This is Missy's Peanut Butter Passion cake - LINK.  Mine looks different because it has the cookie crumbs stated in the recipe and I used a bunt pan... plus I didn't have fudge icing so used chocolate.  If you like cream cheese and peanut butter cups you may like this cake.  I am not a fan of either but my hubby said it was pretty good.  I did like the flavor of the  chocolate cake.

Handy Idea

Found the idea on Pintrest and added my own twist, salvation colors.  Here's a link to the site for the original idea - link .  This would work with less kids too if you change the matting color(s).  Bought the color chart (bookmark) from the Christian bookstore but if you are crafty you could do better with that, I just ran out of time.