Kid Crafts - Christmas One More Time

Yes, it's more than a week after Christmas, but as we've not done any other crafts since then, and I didn't feel like blogging about it over the holidays...

We started crafts on Sunday, by decorating the cookies we baked.  My parents were over, and it soon became a family event. 

(It also took much longer than I expected, and I went through an entire bag of powdered sugar...) 

Zaxxon did a terrific job of keeping his hands out of his mouth--we didn't have to wash his hands once after we started! 

The Pampered Chef frosting thingies worked out great for little hands, too.  (I've had them for months, but this is the first time I've let him use them.)

On Monday, we started work on some train fridge magnets for Zaxxon to give to family.  We got one finished, at any rate, and knew how the rest would go together.  (Zaxxon LOVED the finished product and wanted to play with it all night.  Good thing it came in a package of 12 so we had more than we needed!)

On Tuesday we finished making the trains.  Zaxxon lasted longer than I had expected him to.  He helped me with the big red piece on every one, and then made it through four whole magnets before starting to play.  I sent him downstairs to watch Frosty the Snowman while I continued, and then he helped me finish up when the show was over.

We also made popsicle stick trees.  For the first time, I managed to get him to color something rather than just draw a line and/or scribble on it!  (We'll see if that ability can translate to pictures next time.)

I also let him use white glue (not a stick) by himself for the first time to decorate the tree.

The next day he stamped some wrapping paper for the magnets.  You can see the spots where he turned the ink pads over to stamp them directly too.

We used the foam scraps from the magnets to decorate a Christmas tree.  I hid the pieces throughout the living room and sent him out to find them.  He liked this so much, we had to make a wreath to decorate too.

Here I had him stringing beads on a pipe cleaner to make a candy cane.  He actually lasted for half the length of the pipe cleaner and only deviated from the red-white-red-white pattern once.  He did a lot more than I had anticipated.

Pretending to eat the finished product

We worked on some more candy canes the following day, some with larger beads.  He really seemed to like this project and requested more, even after he was obviously getting tired of it.

I had thought we were done with Christmas crafts, but on Christmas eve day hubby cut a bunch of paper into squares, gathered scissors, pinking shears, and craft punches together, and showed Zaxxon how to make paper snowflakes.

He seemed very happy that he'd come up with and orchestrated a craft all on his own.  It was cute.  I love my husband!