DIY Kids Santa Beard

Here's a fun and easy craft that my son made the other night. He ended up adding to it and continued on crafting for another 20 minutes or so. It was a perfect starter project for some self directed playing time! Or more commonly known as mommy-can-get-some-things-done-time!

I started by taking a piece of cardboard and cutting out a "chin" with a place for a mouth.

Then I gave my little guy the cotton balls and glue. I let him decide where and how to put the cotton balls on. Sometimes my obsessive way of doing it comes out as "control freak"! I let him be abstract. If some cardboard shows, some cardboard shows. Whatevs.

Tape a popsicle stick onto the back

Finished!

 Like I said, my son wanted to keep going. So I cut out some "eyes" and a hat. He taped and taped and taped all three pieces together and colored and glued his little heart out.

DIY: Haunted House

I discovered an amazing little DIY over at Dollar Store Crafts where she took an old Christmas village house and turn it into a dark and creepy haunted house. I happened to be at the Goodwill (just happened to be there) on Saturday and sure enough, there were three discarded Christmas village houses that I knew would be perfect for our project. I knew that my son would really like this craft too so I grabbed all three of them. That way he could go wild on his and I could be more crafty with mine. (Control issues!) 

Here was one of the houses pre-dark and stormy:

Workspace:

Work in progress:

And wow was I excited at the final result!!!

A real spooky house to add to the haunting effect of the rest of the house...more on that later!

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

DIY: Binoculars for Kids

An easy craft to make with your kiddos!

• Two toilet paper rolls that you were going to toss in the trash
• string of yarn
• paint
• hot glue gun and glue
• paint 

 This is one of those crafty things you can do in the middle of a Sunday afternoon when everyone is kind of silly with boredom. You can let your kiddos paint the rolls or paint them yourself. My son asked me to paint a rainbow and I love to paint so I didn't argue! But you could wrap them in cute wrapping paper or go crazy with stickers. Really the possibilities are endless. Just think of all the sparkles you could add for a little girl's set..bling bling!

 

The rest of the project will have to be done by the adult since hot glue has been known to burn ninety layers off of my unsuspecting fingers and scissors have to come into play.

After the rolls were painted and dried, I glued the them together down the middle with a little strip of hot glue.

I made some little holes with the scissors to stick the yarn through. I had to use a toothpick to get the yarn to get started through the hole. Tie a knot and then another couple of knots on top of each other for a good hold.

Add an ice cream and a dog and you're all set.