Melted Crayon Christmas Ornaments - Easy Holiday DIY To Do With Kids

 

 

Another of our Christmas crafts for this year and I have to say I am THRILLED with this one. It came out exactly like I wanted. They were not hard, but they were more time consuming than I expected.

 

Here's the inspiration page for the melted crayon ornaments. Supplies required for this craft are:

-broken crayons

-clear glass ornaments (I used iridescent ones)

-oven mitt or heat glove (I used the heat glove that came with my curling wand)

 

 

These are the ornaments I used. You can see on the box they were $8.99 a dozen but they were half off when I got them. I was trying to decide between clear and iridescent. I ended up getting the iridescent and I'm happy with that choice. The colors don't show up quite as clearly, but it's also pretty forgiving of mistakes and it just looks so pretty.

 

The beginning of the process is pretty simple - unwrap and break a bunch of crayons. My daughter was really into that part. She was a little upset at first that I was breaking her crayons, but she got over it quickly and snapped her Crayolas with gusto. We did use Crayola crayons, as recommended in the link. They say they melt the best. I haven't used anything else, so I can't compare, but the Crayolas worked perfectly well. (My spellcheck doesn't like Crayolas, but how else are you supposed to pluralize Crayola? I'm just sticking with it.)

 

In the link they used kind of big chucks of Crayolas and then tipped them out of the ornaments when they were done with them. I tried that, but it didn't work for me. The pieces either got stuck on the inside or sometimes they half dripped out. I ended up smashing them really small by putting them in a freezer bag and hitting them with a mallet.

 

My daughter picked out the pieces to go inside - I let her pick 2 to 4, depending on their size - and I melted them. The melting took longer than I expected and my child was getting bored with the waiting in true 3-year-old form. So I let her put pieces in all the ornaments and then I melted them all while she played.

 

After the pieces were in, I melted them with my hair dryer and rolled them around until the inside of the ornament was pretty well covered. I figured out what worked best for me was holding the hair dryer in one spot right on the crayon pieces until they were a bit soft, and then slowly turning the ornament, keeping the hair dryer on the pieces. This part should definitely be done by adults. The ornaments get HOT. I very strongly recommend you use an oven mitt or something. After it's all melted just pop the top back on and do the next one. Easy peasy!

 My 3-year-old is not well versed in color theory, so some of her choices were strange. I have to say the orange, purple & gray one is not my favorite. But even the strangely colored ones look neat. The ornaments look so nice, it would even be a good grown-up diy. You could color coordinate them to match your décor and have pretty, unique, inexpensive marbled ornaments. All in all love, love, LOVE these!

See? So pretty!

 

Give these a try! I'd love for you to share pics and tips on our facebook page. And if your in the NWA area, don't forget to check out the calendar for all the local holiday events!

 

Cinnamon Salt Dough Ornaments - Easy, Kid-Friendly DIY Christmas Craft

 

I posted a few days ago about some Christmas crafts I want to do with my preschooler this year. We've since been derailed by a terrible cold that has struck my entire family and just refuses to go away. We have managed to do a couple of the simple ones anyway. Hey, as long as we're stuck in the house sneezing and sniffling, we might as well get some crafting done.

 

The first one I decided to tackle was the No Cook Cinnamon Ornaments. I used the website in the link as my inspiration. The recipe is basically salt dough with cinnamon added.

 

 

-1 cup flour

-1/2 cup salt

-1/2 cup cinnamon (I actually didn't have enough so I used about 3/8 cup cinnamon and 3/8 cup nutmeg)

-3/4 c warm water

 

You just mix that all together. I mixed the dry ingredients first, then added the water and stirred until I got tired of stirring and then finished mixing with my hands. It's pretty sticky and messy at first, but it turns into dough pretty quickly.

 

Once it was well mixed, I broke out the cookie cutters and brought in my daughter. I rolled the dough out onto the table (actually I rolled the dough out onto a cutting sheet because my table is tiled) and I let my daughter pick cookie cutters and push them down into the dough.

Please excuse the blurry pic - I was working with a hyper, wiggly 3-year-old. What we do with cookie cutters is push them all into the dough, then pull them all out and remove the cut out pieces.

I removed the cut out pieces and put them on wax paper, then kneaded the remainder of the dough back into a ball, rolled it out again and let her cut more.  Repeat until you're out of dough. If you're going to be using them as ornaments, remember to put a hole for stringing. I used a toothpick and pushed it though to the widest part, then turned the ornament over and did it again through the same hole but in the other direction. If you only do it one way and not the other, the hole can be kind of closed off on one side. Doing it both ways makes it cleaner.

The inspiration website says they take 24 hours to dry. Ours took a lot closer to a week! Granted, my house is pretty humid but these things were nowhere near dry after 24 hours. Be sure you have a place to set them for a few days.

After they're dry, you can paint them or coat them in mod podge, but I decided to leave ours au natural. They smell cinnamon-and-nutmeg-y, but only when your within about a foot of the tree, so it's not overwhelming. Also, mine are a bit fragile. I think I rolled them out too thin. They should probably be at least a whole 1/4 inch thick.

Overall, I really love them. They are so pretty and rustic.

 

I love the little reindeer. My daughter's favorites are the snowmen and the "socks," otherwise known as stockings. She was so proud to hang them on the tree and tell everyone she made them.

 

If you try these, let me know how it goes! Especially if you have any tips to share. I'd also love to see your pics, here or on our Facebook page. Looking forward to the rest of our Christmas crafting!

Preschool Christmas Crafts

Hey! Long time, no post. Good to be back.

This year is the first year my daughter is into Christmas. And I mean INTO Christmas. She is obsessed with Santa and reindeer and lights and snowmen and snowflakes and decorations....all of that. She even wrote her first letter to Santa this year...

Cute, right? She doesn't quite get the point, but it's still one of my all time favorite pictures.

 

She tells me nearly every day "I'm so excited for Christmas, Mommy!" I put up our very first Christmas decoration a week or so ago. It's an unexciting, non-sparkly, non-shiny paper chain type advent calendar we were given at church. After I hung it up, Sofia stared at it in awe for a few moments. Then she ran to me and gave me a hug, whispering "Thank you, Mommy" in my ear. I'm almost afraid of what she'll do when I put up the tree.

 

I know I've only got a couple years of this and I plan to take full advantage. I'm going full in to Crazy Christmas Mommy mode. I want to cram in as many Christmas activities as I can without blowing our budget or losing our minds. Besides the local NWA events I have in our lineup, I also want to do some age-appropriate holiday crafts. I want some keepsakes so that when all she wants for Christmas is an envelope of cash as she heads out the door to meet her friends (yeah, dream on, Sofia, it's not happening) I will remember this magic age.

 

Below is a list of crafts I plan to try this year. She's 3 and I've tried to pick things I think she can actually do. I think kid's crafts should be done by the kid, as much as possible - the exception being handprints/footprints. There's really no rhyme or reason to the list I've assembled. It's just a list of things I want to try to do with my daughter. I'll post follow-up posts for things we do and let you know how it goes! If you've got any other ideas for crafts I must try, tell me in the comments and maybe we'll add that to our list!

No Cook Cinnamon Ornaments
Peppermint Candy Christmas Ornaments
Handprint Snowmen
Pompom Ornaments (scroll down towards the bottom)
Snowflake Art
Fingerprint Christmas Lights
Marshmallow Snowman
Melted Crayon Ornaments

5 Ways to Display Kids' Art + My Clothesline Display

 

 I don't know about your child, but my daughter loves to make art. And I love that she loves it. Finger painting, coloring, stickers, cutting and pasting - she does it all. She also loves too see her art displayed. It makes her proud to see me put it up. She'll show it off to people and talk about different things she made for months afterword.

 

There's nothing wrong with the tried-and-true refrigerator door, but if you're looking for an alternative to displaying kid's artwork, here are some ideas from around the web. Plus at the end of this post, I'll show you what I do. Click on the pics to go to the original site for more information on each project.

 1. Corkboard

 

Bulletin boards are a classic, of course, but I love this take on it. The smaller corkboard squares make it unique and are a great way to use a small vertical space. I think it would also be cute to have 4 or 6 arranged in a rectangle or diagonally by a staircase. There are so many options!

 



2.  Children's Art in Frames


 Putting kid's artwork in frames makes it instantly chic. I love that it looks so clean and tidy. Also, you can use whatever frames fit your décor. You can hang them straight on the wall, of course, but I like how these are set on floating shelves.



 3. Frames and Clothespins

A great thing about this one is how easily you can change out the pictures. Perfect if you have a prolific artist like mine. So super cute! (Just as an aside, this blogger also has an awesome etsy shop.)

 

4. Planks and Clothespins

Another option involving clothespins. Great for showing off each of your children's talents or you could personalize it with any phrase or quote you love. And I love the rustic look of these boards!

 

5. Curtain Rod and Clips

Another option that looks clean and organized, but this one also allows you to display art of different shapes and sizes. I love the way this looks on the wall! Maybe I need to get a piano....

 

So here's what I do:

 



It's not a great picture, but you get the idea

I used yarn just because I happened to have it on hand. If I was buying, I would have bought twine. The owls are wooden cutouts from Walmart. Hobby Lobby has these as well. They are really inexpensive - $1-$3 apiece. I hot glued the ends of the yarn to the back of the owls and hung the owls with Command strips. I got a bunch of mini clothespins to use for hanging. Every so often we change out the pictures, although you can see in the picture above that it's definitely overflowing right now. (Stay tuned to a post about the caterpillar on the right.)

 

And that's it! What do you do? Anything like the above, or something completely different?

 

See more projects like these by following us on Pinterest.

 



Nature Centers, State Parks & National Parks

This is a list of NWA nature centers, nearby Arkansas state parks & national parks. It will be updated as needed. If we've missed anything, please comment below and let us know. And don't forget to check out the calendar!

Botanical Gardens of the Ozarks of the Ozarks - Fayetteville
Withrow Springs State Park - Huntsville
Ozark Natural Science Center - Huntsville
Pea Ridge National Military Park - Pea Ridge
Prairie Grove Battlefield State Park - Prairie Grove
Hobbs State Park - Conservation Area - Rogers
Devil's Den - West Fork
Arkansas Heritage Commission Natural Areas
Beaver Lake

Ladybug Kid's Birthday Party Theme

We recently celebrated my daughter's 4th birthday and I've been looking back through all of her birthday party pictures. She's only had four, but I love them all! Her 2nd birthday in particular was a lot of fun. She actually picked her own theme. Ladybugs!

We start all her birthdays by filling her room with balloons while she's asleep. Gotta start her special day off right!

We had her birthday party at a park in Gentry. We grilled hotdogs and hamburgers and we had raw cut veggies and fruit, lemonade, red and black candy, olive and tomato ladybugs on crackers plus ladybug cupcakes.

One of the great things about the ladybug theme is you can find so many different things!  

We got puffy ladybug stickers and put them down the center of the tablecloths instead of using a runner. Lala loved them! She kept trying to pull them off the tablecloths, which wasn't so great for the plastic tablecloths, but at least she enjoyed them!

The centerpieces we made ourselves. The flowers, flowerpots & moss came from Dollar Tree. The stand in the middle is from Dollar Tree as well. It's a ladybug shaped bubble wand! We painted them black and red and alternated them along the table. The sheet underneath is scrapbook paper with rows of little ladybugs.

We decorated the posts with ladybug die cuts that Lala glued together herself. She was so excited to make things for her birthday! The big balloons came from The Balloon Closet in Siloam Springs. Wonderful addition to the party. Besides being giant and pretty, they stayed aired up for about 2 weeks! We also used them for her birthday pictures. You can see one at the bottom of this post.

These are just straight cylinder vases we already had on hand. We glued the ribbon on with hot glue and filled them with all the red and black candy we could find.

These were an idea from Taste of Home. They are a great place to check out for themed food ideas. So super cute!

We did the cupcakes ourselves but we did have a bit of a complication when it came to these. Lala is allergic to red dye 40! So am I and so is my nephew. Usually, we just try to avoid anything with artificial red (or purple or orange or some blues - it's harder than you would think!), but ladybugs just happen to be red and black. All the red and black icing we could find contained red dye 40 (yes, the black too). BUT the liquid icing dye does not. Go figure! So we took plain white vanilla icing and dyed it ourselves, adding powdered sugar to bring it back to the right consistency. The cupcakes were super cute, but they didn't hold up too well to the August heat.

The adults took these and left the unmelted cute ones for the kids.

They sure were tasty. Oh, and bonus DIY - I added a ladybug button to a plain white bow for her hair.

Since I am the photographer, party planner, decorator, server, assistant gift opener, etc...I didn't quite manage to get pictures of everything. Not pictured are the red and black paper plates, the extra-ladybug-decked serving tables, the bunting around her highchair tray and Lala's adorable ladybug dress. Oh, and the plastic ware! We put 3 stick-on rhinestones on the end of each fork. They fell off eventually and they were disposable forks anyway. But we had fun doing them and every girl's party needs some sparkle!

We had a lot of fun celebrating my happy girl's birthday. I thought she was so grown up, turning two. Now two seems so long ago and just like yesterday, all at the same time.

Visiting Crystal Bridges -Things To Do With Kids In NWA

I went to Crystal Bridges for the first time this weekend. Seriously, my first time. Crazy right? A free activity in northwest Arkansas that has received worldwide acclaim and I've never been. We keep intending to go and it just keeps not happening. So this weekend I packed up the kiddo and we went.

It was awesome! My daughter was a little young for it, as I knew she would be, but she seemed to enjoy it anyway. If you're looking for something to do with or without kids in Northwest Arkansas, Crystal Bridges should be near the top of your list!

We went through it pretty quickly - much more quickly than the place warrants - but I wanted to let Fia go at her own pace. She liked looking at everything, though, and describing the pictures. She's entered this phase where she talks. All the time. She likes to talk to people and to describe things and she doesn't have any sort of filter at all. It's pretty cute and funny. When we're at home.

I don't remember what she said about everything, but here are some of the highlights. Click the quote to see the piece she was talking about.

She took her dress off. She's going swimming.

Oh, no! He dropped it. It's messy.

It's a monkey right there. He's drinking coffee. There's a scary face in there. (Scary faces are skulls. Not sure where the coffee comes in...)

She has a balloon! Can me see it? She has a chest. That is look like my mommy!

 

 And we left the gallery after that last one. I'm sure the other museum-goers appreciated that explanation. For the record the sculpture is lovely, but does not look like me. Also I don't twirl around naked with balloons. Just so there's no confusion.

After that we walked around outside for a while, but it was so hot and muggy that we didn't linger outside too long. But the little bit we saw was wonderful. We definitely need to come back when the weather is a bit milder.

I have to go inside because it's too hot. I'm too sweaty. See my armpits? My armpits are yucky.

So then we went inside to the Experience Art Studio, or as we call it, The Kids Part.



















I didn't get to take too many pictures there because I was too busy playing with my girl! It's a bright space with lots of light and silly monsters painted on the walls. They have lots of hands on activities: blocks, puppets, books, and a bunch of things I don't even know how to describe. And they have different simple art activities. That day they had sheets of sandpaper to color on. Fia thought that was weird and only wanted me to do it. But she loved coloring on the regular paper and looking at the art other kids had posted up on the wall.

All in all, we had a blast! I am so grateful to have such a wonderful place here in NWA. We will definitely be back!