December Crafts

Here's what you're looking at: Top l-r: Anna's pomander, finished beeswax snowflakes, cutting her snowflake, Steve & Anna decorating the house; Middle l-r: Steve working on his pomander, beeswax ornaments hardening in the pan, proud Anna with her snowflake; Bottom l-r: our finished pomanders, snowflakes I made on the library doors, Anna & I decorating, the finished gingerbread house!

Here's a little bit of what we've done this Christmas season.  We've tried to keep things low-key and fairly simple.

We started off December by making some orange pomanders.  I got some whole cloves and clementines at the store.  I got some recommendations to use clementines instead of oranges because the skin is thinner and easier for kids to pierce with the cloves.  Anna really enjoyed making them.  I did end up just piercing random holes all over her orange with a knife and that made it really easy for her to do it.  I made a couple and we even convinced Steve to join in.  His is the Christmas tree orange.  It was fun and fast and now our library smells great.

Later, Anna and I decided to make some snowflakes.  I folded hers into a square snowflake just so she wouldn't have to cut through so many layers of paper.  She's still learning how to use the scissors.  In fact, she mostly made random straight cuts along the sides.  I went back and just connected some of the cuts to make them holes.  She was so proud of herself and her snowflake.

One of the crafts I did mostly on my own.  I bought a pound of beeswax from Amazon and a cute snowflake cookie pan from JoAnn's.  I melted the beeswax in a double boiler and then Anna would point to the snowflake she wanted me to fill.  We ended up making 17 snowflakes total.  Later, I used a hot piece of metal to poke a hole in each one and threaded it with a piece of twine to make ornaments.  We passed them out to our neighbors and friends for their Christmas gifts.

Our biggest project so far has been the gingerbread house.  Steve picked up a kit at the grocery store.  We used the candy they provided plus some that we got at the bulk section of Winco to decorate.  Mostly, I put frosting on the house and Anna chose which candies she wanted and stuck them into the frosting.  I did candy corns around the bottom and the front door.  Steve did the jellybean windows.  We had a lot of fun making it and Anna is enthralled by it even two weeks later.  She drags her stool over to the counter to stare at it.  Well, stare at it and slowly eat a piece here and a piece there of the candy!

Just one more project left- ornaments.  We're going to do those when Alli gets here for Christmas weekend.  That'll be another post.  Merry Christmas!