Do You Remember Shrinky Dinks?

Well, they haven't gone anywhere! You can still buy them, people! And they're just as cool as ever! I buy mine off of Amazon. Now, you can buy name brand still. But I buy these cheaper ones. They come in clear and white.

Some ideas for how to use them:
1. magnets – we made Christmas ones!

2. necklaces and bracelets 3. keychains – I put these together because the only difference is the length of the chain they're attached to. I made this one with ink and my son's fingerprints.

4. brooch – clearly these are not going to be as fancy as the ones your grandma used to own, but they will be personal and interesting and cheap and easy. These are quite easy to make. Simply follow the directions on the package! I use permanent markers and permanent inks to make designs on the paper. Then, cut them out. Punch a hole if you plan to make it into a necklace, bracelet, or keychain. Now put them on a baking sheet covered with parchment paper and put them in a preheated oven. Watch them shrink before your very eyes! Take them out when they're done (about a minute or two). Attach a chain or magnet or whatever you need to finish your project! You're done!

25 Days of Christmas: Day 13

Elf on the Shelf: Crafts
That sneaky little elf of ours got all the craft supplies out!

Day 13: Christmas Craft
I love crafts! So we of course had to do a super fun one. Here it is:

25 Days of Christmas: Day 1

I absolutely LOVE Christmas! It's my favorite time of year! I don't just love Christmas. I love everything that goes along with Christmas. I love the candy, all the sweets, in fact, the decorations, the crafts, the music, the cheer, the joy, and all the excitement. I have already decorated my entire house! It's one of my favorite things. (My least favorite thing is cleaning my entire house before I put up all the decorations.)

So now that we have my intense love for everything Christmas established, let's get started. I have decided to go all out for my 5yo son this year. We have everything. I have planned at least 1 activity for every day leading up to Christmas. We also have our little elf on the shelf. Each day, I will post what we did that day and what our little elf did that night.

Day 1: Homemade ornament
I bought this ornament at Joann's Fabric for $0.99 (plus a coupon for 25% off my total purchase). Very cheap.

First we painted the whole thing blue. That went fairly smooth. The only bad part was waiting for everything to dry.

Then came the fun part! I painted my son's 3 fingers white and then pressed them down onto our ornament. We also added some white dots while we had the paint out to look like snow. I also painted a white hump at the bottom to look like a hill. And then, of course, we had to wait for this to dry too.

After everything was dry, we took our markers and decorated the snowmen. They of course needed hats, arms, buttons, carrot noses, scarfs, etc.

We put our names and the year on the back to remember this fun craft.

The last things to do were add a string and then hang it on the Christmas tree!

Wasn't that fun? We had a blast.

We also ended up going to Hy-Vee where there was a tree lighting countdown and then visits with Santa, reindeer, hot cocoa and cookies! It was so much fun!

Elf on the Shelf: Day 1 - Arrival Day
Since today was arrival day, our elf decided to bring Owen a letter from himself and from Santa. He even stuck it in the mailbox.

DIY Bookmark by a toddler

This past Mother's Day, my son made an amazing gift for me! It's adorable and I get to see it every time I read a book. I love it! Plus, it's super easy.

Step 1: Pick out some pictures and arrange them in a word document. Print. Cut down to size.

Step 2: Have your child color on a piece of paper (we used a green piece of paper). Cut the paper down to the same size as your pictures. We then chose to write on it and have my son sign it, but this part is clearly optional.

Step 3: Cut a black piece of paper a little larger than your other two pieces of paper. Now glue your colored paper and pictures on opposite sides of the black paper.

Step 4: Use clear tape (like packing tape) to cover your bookmark. We used two pieces to accommodate how wide it was. You can barely see the seam. This basically laminates the bookmark to make it more durable.

Step 5: Use a hole punch to make a hole in the top. Use a piece of yarn to make a tail at the top. We used yarn that was the same color as the piece of paper my son colored.
This is our finished project:

I think it turned out pretty cool!