By Stacey Davis

Are you gearing up for the Holiday season yet? Our lights are hung outside already, the Christmas decorations are up and I have been enjoying the sounds of Christmas music since the day after Thanksgiving. And I’m not the only one who has been thinking about Christmas early this year. My kids already have been. They have been thinking about what they are getting for Christmas since around Halloween. Every commercial they see on TV evokes a round of “I want that!”

So I decided to change their ”getting” attitude into one of giving. First of all I have decreased TV viewing time that involves exposing my kids to the zillion commercials of the newest, bestest toy that starts my kids on the endless cycle of wanting. Second, my husband and I decided to launch a campaign we call “Operation Reason for the Season”.

It all began last week when I got the latest edition of Family Fun. If you don’t have a subscription to this magazine I would highly recommend it. Each month the pages are filled with ideas and crafts that I would actually attempt. The article that evoked our goal for the season was called “Reader’s favorite holiday traditions”. As I read each story I noticed there was a theme of giving. One story was about a family who had a toy-giveaway day and another told of a family who “elfed” another family each year by leaving them treats on their door anonymously during the 12 days of Christmas. But the story that caught my eye was about a family and their “good deeds” jars. In this family the kids come up with 24 simple acts of kindness that they can do for each day in December leading up to Christmas. Each day they choose a random act from the jar and once it is completed they put the “finished” slips of paper into a special box. On Christmas Eve they put the special box with all of their completed acts of kindness under the tree as a gift to Santa. We shared the story with our daughters and they seem excited about the idea so we decided to give it a try.

 

Teaching our children about giving and kindness is about doing, not talking. This Christmas season do something with your kids….help them give some toys to a shelter, take them shopping for a toy to give to Toys for Tots, or help them pick out some food from your own pantry to take to your local food drive. I hope that we can find something to make our own altruistic tradition this Christmas season to make sure our daughters know it is a season of giving, not getting.

1 John:17-18 If anyone has material possesions and sees a brother or sister in need but has no pity on them,  how can the love of God be in that person? Dear children, let us not love with words or speech but with actions and truth.

By Stacey Davis

Each month I get Family Fun. I’m a big fan of the magazine; each month I get to read about new recipes, places to travel, parenting ideas, and crafts.In the February edition there was a craft called Sticky Hands, Warm Heart. I thought I’d give it a try…..

You need: Cornstarch, water, yarn, parchment paper, and a heart shaped cookie cutter.

Combine ¼ cup of cornstarch and ½ cup of water over medium heat until it’s thick and translucent. Then you cut yarn into foot-long sections. Next, push a piece of yarn into the cornstarch glue, running the yarn between a thumb and forefinger to remove the excess glue.  Then you lay the yarn inside your heart shaped cookie cutter and repeat until the yarn fills up the heart shape.

Sounds easy, right?  That is what I thought especially when the picture attached to the article showed a happy, smiley little girl making the craft in the magazine. Not so easy for me, the opposite of Martha Stewart.  I had to try to make the cornstarch glue about 3 times until I got it right. My mixture quickly became to gel like.  Luckily for me an easy fix is to just add more hot water. I enlisted the help of my 7 and 4 year old daughters who quickly became disinterested because it was too messy. I persevered, with the help of my husband, and made 7 hearts in all.

They did not look like the pictures in the magazine……..

….. but we did have some (family!) fun making them!

For complete instructions and to give it a go yourself visit http://familyfun.go.com/crafts/sticky-hands-warm-hearts-973682/

By Stacey Davis

This year Christmas is on a budget. Money is tight so we are getting into the spirit of creative giving and homemade crafts. I had an Usborne book party to earn free books as gifts, I used our jewelry craft day to make bracelets for my daughters, I went out at 5 am on Black Friday to score some great deals on toys, and I’m getting my creative groove on. And in the spirit of Christmas giving I am going to share them with you.

Snowman Ornaments

I’m so excited about this one; I have all of the supplies in my house already! I got the idea from Jennifer Bellgraph so can’t claim it as my own.

You will need: store bought plain ornament, white paint (I’m using Acrylic), your child’s hand, and black marker or craft pen.

Directions: Paint you child’s hand with the white paint and have them place their hand around the bottom of the ornament. You can also just paint their fingers white. The imprint will make snowman like figures. When the paint dries use the black marker to put on eyes, mouth and buttons on the snow man. I put my painted ornaments upside down in an egg carton to allow them to dry. I also used a craft pen to put my child’s name and the year on the ornament.

Christmas morning pancake mix

You will need: A Ziploc gallon bag, dish towel, ribbon, flours, sugar, baking powder, cinnamon and salt.

Directions: Fill the resealable bag with 3 cups all-purpose flour, 2 table spoons sugar, 2 tablespoons baking powder, 4 teaspoons ground cinnamon, and 1 teaspoon salt. Seal the bag and gently squish to content to mix everything well.

Wrap to sealed plastic bag in a dish towel and tie it all together with a ribbon. Add a tag that instruction the receiver to add ¾ cup of milk, 1 egg, and 2 tablespoons oil to the mix to complete it. We made decorative tag with the instructions on them and tied the tags onto the towel with the ribbon.

Fleece Tie Blanket

You will need: For an adult you will need about 2 yards of 2 pieces of fleece. You can use less fabric for a child. Walmart has some great patterns and solid colors for $4.44 a yard.

Take your two pieces of fleece. Put one piece on top of the other lining up the edges so they are even. One side will be the front and the other side will be the back of your blanket

Take a piece of 4″x4″ paper lay it on the corner of your blanket. Then cut out the corner through both layers. Proceed to do this on all four corners.

Now you are ready to cut your fringes. Cut 4 inches into both fleeces at 1″ wide. I found it easier to lay a tape measure across from the corner of the cut out corner to the other.

Your fringes don’t need to be 1″ exactly, just try to keep them the same size. Proceed to cut 1″ intervals on all four sides.

Starting on one side tie over hand knots (using one fringe from each fleece.) Tie these knots on every other fringe around the entire blanket.

Then flip the whole blanket over and tie the remaining knots until your blanket is complete. (This helps your knotted ends look perfect)

Some prefer to only tie one knot, but I like to double knot them. This helps them from coming untied especially in the wash.

Rag rug or dish towel

Visit Baker Allegan Studio and weave a rag rug or towel on their looms. You can bring in your own rags, and weave a rug for $3.00 per foot, or use our rags for $8.00 per foot. Rugs take about 3 hours to complete. Towels are 45 cents an inch, all materials included and take about an hour to complete. We recommend calling in and reserving a loom.  Call them at 269-903-6883 or look for them online.

I hope these ideas help make your season merry and bright or at least get your creative juices flowing! If you have any great ideas that you’d like to share please post them in the comment section J

Looking for some fun crafts to do with your kids? Check out Impress Your Kids. This site is filled with fantastic, unique ideas. The neat thing about this site is that many of the crafts incorporate teaching a Biblical principle or even a Bible verse.

By Colleen Stout

When it comes to craft time with young children, I like  to keep it simple. Otherwise it makes me crazy.

Here’s what you’ll need to make this easy Jack-O-Lantern craft:

• 1 piece each of orange, yellow and green construction paper
• Safety Scissors
• Glue
• Crayon or pencil

Instructions:

1. On the orange paper draw the shape of a pumpkin.
2. Have the child draw a Jack-O-Lantern face on the pumpkin shape: eyes, nose, mouth.
3. Depending on their age, you or child cut out the pumpkin shape, then cut out the and eyes, nose and mouth.
4. Glue the pumpkin to the yellow piece of paper.
5. Cut the yellow paper out around the pumpkin.
6. Cut a stem out of the green paper, and glue to the top of your pumpkin.

Now, you have a “glowing” Jack-O-Lantern.

Here’s an easy almost no-sew Cloth Pumpkin you can make in under an hour.

Choose your fabric. Find a round object to trace. A dinner plate makes a small pumpkin.

Obviously the larger the object the larger the pumpkin. Cut out your circle.

Sew a running stitch all away the way around the edge of the circle. Use something strong, like three of four strands of embroidery floss.

After you’ve stitched completely around the circle place some stuffing in the center of it.

Pull on both ends of the thread to gather the fabric together around the stuffing. Tie the thread to hold the gather together. You can add more stuffing through the hole in the top to fill out the shape.

One you have the shape you want, get some twine. Wrap the twine around the ball four times, criss-crossing like tying a ribbon around a gift. Tie ends to secure. Trim off extra twine.

To make a stem break a small piece off a stick. Insert in the center of the pumpkin. Hot glue to secure.

On a piece of green felt draw a leaf “collar”  that you will insert over the stem to cover the hole on the top.

Cut the leaves out. Cut a slit in the center so that it will slip over the stem.

Place the leaves over the stem. To make vines wrap some floral wire around a pencil.

Pull the wire off the pencil. It will be shaped like a spring.

Make two vines. Wrap them around the stem.

And there’s your pumpkin!