cute penguin craft

What a cute penguin craft to brighten up these dark winter days! I am so proud of Claire, because she cut all of the penguin pieces all by herself. This was just the second time that I traced shapes on paper and asked her to cut them out.

What you need:
black paper
white paper
orange paper (scrap)
patterned paper (with a small pattern)
12x12 background piece of paper (your colour choice)
decorative ribbon
black marker
scissors
glue
template

Start by printing off the template. Cut the pieces out of the template and trace them on the paper. The main body and wings need to be traced on black paper (I used a white colouring pencil which worked well.) Then penguin tummy and eyes need to be traced on white paper. I used an embossed piece of white paper for the tummy. I like the extra piece of texture that it adds to the penguin. Trace the beak on orange paper. I forgot to include the template that we used for the earmuffs, so just make sure the circles that you use are bigger than the penguin's eyes.

Have your child cut out all of the shapes. Once cut, you can start to assemble your penguin on the paper. We started with the main body, followed by the penguin tummy, eyes, beak (fold in half) and earmuffs. I cut a scrap of ribbon for the long bit of the scarf, and then two small pieces for the tails of the scarf. Once Claire glued the scarf on the penguin, she glued the wings on, so that they covered up the cut edges of the ribbon. Lastly, she drew (traced) a line to connect the ear muffs, and dots for the eyes.

Click here for the link to the template.

Linking up with: Six Sister's Stuff &  Skip to my Lou & Tip Junkie & Weekly Kids Co-op & Tatertots and Jello

handprint wreath

I still love doing handprint crafts, but now that Simon's 2 1/2, they're increasingly harder to do with him. He's a very independent two year old, who always knows just what to do, even without instruction. Read- he doesn't want any help. From anyone. Ever. I was so happy when he let me help him place his hand on the paper, not 1, not 2, but seven times! He did a great job using his thumb to make a few red berries the next day (once all the green paint was dry. I did not want to risk messing up all of those beautiful handprints.)

I knew that I wanted to add a bow to the wreath to finish it off. I tried drawing one myself, but that was a huge fail. I thought that a ribbon bow would look too small on such a large wreath (and I didn't want to buy ribbon just for this project.) Imagine my delight when I saw that Ellinee had pinned a link to their paper bows. I love the red chevron ones that they have posted, but my printer is running low on ink, so I printed the template and then cut out the bow using some patterned paper that I had on hand. The 3D bow was the perfect finishing touch for this handprint wreath.

Linking up with: Six Sister's Stuff &  Skip to my Lou & Tip Junkie & Weekly Kids Co-op & Tatertots and Jello

Christmas wreath craft

I think that this is my favorite Christmas craft yet. It was so simple to make too. My own Christmas cards that I'm making this weekend will be a spin off of this craft.

To start, I mixed a few different shades of paint together. I mixed green with white, green with yellow, and then just used plain green. Unfortunately, the contrast didn't show up as much as I'd hoped on the finished product. Claire stamped the rim of a small glass in the paint and then stamped it on the paper. Three times, once in each different shade of green. When the green paint was dry, Claire used a q-tip that she dipped in red paint to make the berries on the wreath. I tied a small bow with a bit of red ribbon that I found in my stash. To finish the card off, I used a stamp and gold ink pad to stamp the words love hope peace joy.

Are you making your own Christmas cards this year? I will have the kids make a few to send to their friends who don't live near us anymore.

Linking up with: Six Sister's Stuff &  Skip to my Lou & Tip Junkie & Weekly Kids Co-op & Tatertots and Jello

Rudolph sandwich

I love making these cute lunches for my kids. They don't even think twice about eating them. They hardly take any extra time to make, this one took just over 5 minuets. That's it!

What you'll need:
bread (I used whole wheat and white bread)
1 mini marshmallow
2 mini chocolate chips
1 red smartie/m&m
heart cookie cutter (could use a large circle one)
small circle cookie cutter

We always have a million loaves of bread here, so I used a whole wheat bread for the big part of the sandwich, and white bread for the nose. Use what you have on hand. As you can see from the picture above, I used two slices of whole wheat bread and made a (peanut butter and jam) sandwich, and just one piece of bread folded over to make another peanut butter and jam sandwich.

Use the large heart cookie cutter to cut the large sandwich. Use the smaller circle cookie cutter to cut a circle from the small, folded over sandwich. Cut the marshmallow in half, and stick a mini chocolate chip on each sticky part of the marshmallow. Use the leftover crusts to form the antlers. Then it's time to put it all together. Place the heart on the plate, upside down. Add the antlers to the heart. Place the small circle on top of the heart sandwich to make the nose. Add the red smartie on top of the small circle sandwich. Add the eyes above the nose.That's it! It took me longer to write this blog post than to make this adorable lunch.

Linking up with: Six Sister's Stuff &  Skip to my Lou & Tip Junkie & Weekly Kids Co-op & Tatertots and Jello

Christmas paper tree

 
This was one of the first Christmas crafts that we did this year. I originally saw a similar project done on Meg Duerksen's blog last year. Claire has a small attention span, so we made ours on a smaller scale. For our base, we used a white piece of 6x6 cardstock. I cut a bunch of green paper into strips for Claire. She put them in the order that she wanted to use them, and then, starting at the bottom, she cut each piece smaller than the last one. Then she glued them all onto the cardstock (using a glue stick.) When she was done, she drew a tree trunk on the tree and glued a star at the top. The first of many Christmas projects!

Linking up with: Six Sister's Stuff &  Skip to my Lou & Tip Junkie & Weekly Kids Co-op & Tatertots and Jello

gingerbread waffles

It's starting to look a lot like Christmas here! The kids and I have been on a Christmas crafting storm around here lately. I have a week full of posts this week, and we're still going strong. 

I saw a recipe for these gingerbread waffles in a magazine for our local grocery store and knew right away that I wanted to make them for breakfast. The night before I was going to make them, I spent thirty minutes or so combing my Pinterest boards and browser history trying to find the recipe. That was before I remembered that I'd read it in a magazine, and not seen the recipe online. Not hard to tell that we're moving to a digital world!

These waffles will make your house smell so good all day long. Claire said the the batter smelled like donuts. How can you go wrong with that?

Gingerbread Waffles

2 1/4 cups all purpose flour
2 tbsp brown sugar
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
2 tsp cinnamon
2 tsp ground ginger
1/4 tsp nutmeg
1/4 tsp cloves
1 1/2 cups buttermilk
3 eggs
1/4 cup molasses
1/4 cup butter, melted

In a bowl, whisk together flour, brown sugar, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, and cloves. Add in buttermilk, eggs, molasses and butter. Stir everything together, until well combined.

Fill greased waffle iron with 1/2 of batter per waffle. Cook until golden brown. Serve right away with butter and maple syrup.

Note: Since I never actually have buttermilk on hand, I just add white vinegar to my milk and let it sit for 5 minutes before using it. For this recipe, add 1 1/2 tbsp vinegar to the 1 1/2 cups of milk.

I love waffles, but for some reason my kids prefer pancakes. I made pancakes for the kids using this recipe, and waffles for myself. If you're going to make these into pancakes, I would add another little splash of milk to make the batter a little runnier.

Recipe adapted from Sobeys' Inspired Magazine Holiday  2012

Enjoy!

Linking up with: Six Sister's Stuff &  Skip to my Lou & Tip Junkie & Tatertots and Jello