Are you looking for some simple, fun, and creative crafts, recipes, and decorations for St. Patrick’s Day? Me too! So I pulled a couple ideas from our archives and then found a few more to inspire us with their simple ingredients, kid-friendly steps, and fun presentations.
Here are a couple of Mom Advice classics:
Easter is just around the corner and today’s DIY Easter Wreath is an adorable Peep Wreath created with that infamous Easter candy and adorned with a simple rolled ribbon rosette. Peep wreaths are easy to create for the Easter season and are inexpensive Easter decoration to add to adorn a wall or interior door of your home.
Here is a picture of the supplies you will need for this craft and all of the supplies for this tutorial can be found at your local Walmart store. You will need one 14″ straw wreath (leave this covered in the plastic wrap), 12 packages of Peeps in whatever color your heart desires, 1 yard of rosette ribbon (this will need to be cut in the fabric department), 1 piece of white felt, toothpicks, hot glue gun, and glue sticks.
As an aside, if you haven’t visited the craft section of the store in awhile, you will be amazed at the new ribbon & trim offerings they are carrying. If making a flower isn’t your thing, they also have a variety of pre-made flowers by the hair and new baby accessories line that you could use in lieu of making the flower I am going to show you today. It had been awhile since my last visit, and I was a little overwhelmed with the new choices available!
Assembling the wreath is easy and can be done one of two ways. Poke your toothpick through your Peep almost until the toothpick pokes out of the top and then push your toothpick through your straw wreath OR you can just poke the toothpick directly in to your wreath and then stick your Peep on top of it.
My only aside to this is that I do think that if you are planning to keep the wreath, I would add a dab of hot glue to each of the Peeps. The idea of just skewering with a toothpick just didn’t work for my wreath due to the depth of how I positioned all of these. They really needed a little extra hold especially the Peeps that were on the bottom and inverted upside down.
Find a design that makes sense for you. I did three rows of Peeps with them all uniform and in a row. My Type-A personality does not allow me to be whimsical with design. I want them all in a row, the right way, all in a line. If you know me, this would not surprise you at all. To add depth, I also did a few in between rows of two Peeps (as pictured above).
Once again, I would recommend hot gluing a bit as you go to add a little extra security, otherwise, you will hear those sad little plops of Peeps committing suicide and jumping ship from the wreath. It is heartbreaking, but can you blame them?
If you do your wreath right, you will end up with six Peeps to spare and Peep dust all over your table. I can only give you an estimate on the number though (give or take a few) since I find Peeps (and Peep dust) awfully delicious!
You may remember this Rolled Rosette tutorial from this adorable Easter bow I made my daughter last year to go with her Easter outfit.
To start your rolled ribbon rosette, you will want to start with one of the roses on the ribbon to create the center of your pretty flower. Now all you need to do is start twisting your ribbon in between each of the little roses (find those spot where there is only tulle like I have pictured above) add a dab of hot glue, and then twist again, glue again, and repeat. If you twist the ribbon tightly, you will have a tighter and flatter flower. If you twist a little looser, you will get more of the petal effect with the frayed edges working their way out more on the ribbon. Either way, it will be beautiful. Keep twisting until you reach almost the end of the ribbon. Add a dab of glue and tuck it into the back of your bow.
Finish by cutting a circle out of felt. You can use a drinking glass to trace your circle on the felt or just freehand it. This felt circle will hold all of that ribbon secure and together underneath your Rolled Ribbon Rosette Hair Bow. Hot glue your felt circle to the back of your flower. Hold this for a couple of seconds to secure it.
Once you have secured your felt circle, add more glue and attach it wherever you want on your Peep wreath. Feel free to add other rolled rosettes like these or cute felted loopy bows or just add a fun fabric bow. As you can see, the possibilities for adorning your wreath are endless.
This wreath makes me so happy and is a fun nod to the season. The best part? It will cost you about $20 in supplies (assuming you have a glue gun, glue sticks, & some scissors in your craft supplies like me!)
Be sure to check back in the next couple of weeks for more fabulous Easter projects! In the meantime, try some Kool-Aid dyed eggs, bake a batch of Bunny Bread in your bread machine, make a cute hair accessory to go with your daughter’s Easter outfit this year, or try your hand at marbleizing some eggs. These are just a few of my favorite projects you will find for the Easter season on the blog.
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I can’t remember the last time my husband and I went out for Valentine’s Day. My favorite thing to do for Valentine’s Day is to plan an elegant feast for us at home and wow my husband with my cooking. Valentine’s Day dinner dates at home are something that I look forward to every year and I can’t wait to showcase some ideas for you.
We stopped dining out for fancy meals after my husband lost his job and we found ourselves lacking the income to indulge in such a luxury. After the birth of our children, we knew that paying for a sitter and a dinner out were both far out of our budget reach.
As I became more acquainted with the kitchen though, we soon realized that dinners out just lacked that pizzazz that we could easily get from home. The food was a bit better, (if the house was relatively tidy) the atmosphere was better, and we could spend a whole heck of a lot less and get a whole heck of a lot more.
It is funny, now even when we have help to watch our kids, we still gravitate towards eating at home. I remember having a gift card for a fancy restaurant in town and we ended up spending $75 on dinner.
I looked across the table at my husband and he said,
“It was good, but…I like your tilapia better.”
Yeah, the tilapia that I buy for $4.99 a bag and prepare at home tasted better than the $25 of one fillet of tilapia plated in front of my hubby… sickening, isn’t it?
Dining at home doesn’t have to feel like a chore. First begin with the scenery. Can you relocate to a different location in your home? An elegant picnic on the floor? A folding table elegantly set with your finest table linens? What about that dining table that only gets used for special occasion? How about dusting off that wedding china that seldom gets used? When you use and eat in spots in your home that are seldom visited, it can feel a lot like dining out.
Don’t make it the same old dinner that you usually do, but make it a delicious experience that you can treasure. I think having great ingredients and new recipes to indulge in makes cooking feel like fun instead of the same old dinner routine that I have to perform.
Walmart challenged me this month to spend $35 and showcase some ideas that you could incorporate in your own feast. I wanted to show a mix of homemade and store-bought ideas that any couple could try. This is a feast prepared with your budget and time constraints in mind.
My store-bought choices included fresh strawberries, an angel food cake, a bag of frozen edamame sprinkled with kosher salt, chicken & vegetable dumplings from the P.F. Chang’s frozen food line, and bottles of fine wine priced at $10.
Even these homemade Peanut-Ginger Chicken Noodles were an easy creation thanks to those rotisserie chickens in the Deli department. The best part is that you can find those for under $5 in the coolers in the deli. I love that these are already chilled so that I can make fast work shredding my chicken for my favorite dishes.
I am sharing our delicious menu that was absolute perfection for us that I hope will inspire a deliciously wonderful date night with your significant other. I was able to purchase all of this food plus two bottles of wine priced at $10 each for a mere $35. If you skip the wine, this meal can be created with about $15 in food supplies. If you dine out, that is about the cost of two glasses of wine or one dinner (with no appetizers or drinks). Did I mention my meal offers leftovers for an entire week? You don’t even have to to tip the waitress (unless you want to give her a smooch).
I think the savings speaks for itself!
| Peanut-Ginger Chicken Noodles |
Source: Picky Palate Cookbook
Valentine’s Day is just around the corner and today I wanted to show you how to dress up a plain t-shirt with a DIY Rosette Bib Necklace. This tutorial for a DIY Rosette Bib Necklace will help you make a pretty piece of inexpensive jewelry that you can wear year after year to spice up an item you already have in your wardrobe for Valentine’s Day.
Supplies NeededA simple chain or bead necklace (in the jewelry supplies)
Jewelry cutting tools (if needed to trim the sizing of your chain)
Fabric (you can use scrap fabric or buy inexpensive fabric quarters)
Felt
Hot Glue Gun & Glue Sticks
Scissors
Blow Dryer
Tweezers
Editor’s Note:I found my supplies at Walmart because I was already at that store shopping and they cost approximately $5 (if you don’t count buying jewelry cutting/shaping tools, hot glue gun, or scissors which I already owned).
1. Begin by measuring and cutting 5 strips of fabric into 1 1/2″ strips. The length can be determined by you. I used the length of the fabric quarters that I bought for this size rosette, but you can adjust to the sizing of your choice. I chose two different fabric prints for mine, but you can certainly do all the same color, if you prefer!
2. Add a knot to the end of your fabric to begin the start of your rolled rosette.
3. Begin twisting your fabric, adding small dabs of hot glue to hold the twisted rosette in place. Keep twisting and dabbing with glue until you get almost to the end of your fabric or until you reach your desired sizing.
4. With the end flap of your fabric, add a dot of hot glue to the back of your rosette, and then fold it behind to secure it in place.
5. If you have any gobs of hot glue (which is very easy to see with plain fabrics), use your blow dryer on a low setting to get rid of any hot glue strings or to slowly melt the glue a bit to pull it off with tweezers.
6. Glue your rosettes, in the center, onto your piece of felt in a necklace arrangement. Make sure you leave the edges of the felt loose to tuck your chain behind it.
7. Use your scissors to trim the felt around the flower. Secure the flowers with a little more hot glue between them to help hold them together into one piece.
8. Secure your chain with hot glue between the layer of the rosette and the felt.
9. Trim your chain to the desired length and add the ends to your chain, if needed.
You can begin wearing your beautiful handmade necklace immediately! I wore mine for our annual Valentine’s Day Bunco night with a black top and red patent leather belt! It’s such a fun way to spice up items you already have in your wardrobe and could be made in a variety of colors, depending on your holiday occasion!
I do love Valentine’s Day around here and here are a few other fun Valentine’s Day projects you can spy on MomAdvice! Tomorrow I will be sharing an elegant Valentine’s dinner you can share on a budget!
DIY Tissue Paper Pom Poms
Red Velvet Cake With Cream Cheese Frosting
Red Velvet Cake Batter Ice Cream
Valentine’s Day Yarn Wreath
DIY Coffee Filter Flowers
Rolled Rosette Rings (to match your necklace)
Peppermint Marshmallows (cut them in hearts!)
Be Mine Fluffy Cake Doughnuts
Today I also happen to be helping host the 2nd Annual Valentine Week Party! Last year’s week long event ended in a great party with 275 Valentine’s Day projects added!
This is really HUGE my friends! You can add your Valentine’s projects on any of the blogs and be seen on ALL 9 of them! That’s over 100,000 readers that will see your projects!
Meet your hostesses…
Now, it’s your turn to showcase your Valentine’s Day Ideas to the Party, simply click on the little blue button where it says “add your link” and your posts will show up on ALL NINE BLOGS! How cool is that? I can’t wait to see what projects you have been working on for Valentine’s Day!!
Valentine’s Day is just around the corner and today I wanted to showcase some fun ways to add a little Valentine’s fun to your house using items you can often find at your local thrift shop.
The best part about these projects is that the are inexpensive and oh-so-easy to create!
If snow globes are your thing, I adore these sweet little Snow Globe Jars that you can create for Valentine’s Day.
I also love that they are inspired by one of my favorite out-of-my-budget shops, Anthropolgie (@ whiperberry)
Free printables abound and can be a fun way to dress up a wall, table, or mantle without spending a lot of money for holiday occasions.
Spray paint a Goodwill frame a bold red and insert this adorable free printable in your frame for a fun nod to the holiday that sits perfectly in your budget! (@ Flamingo Toes)
If you have the talent for crochet, this adorable Crochet Heart Garland is a fun project to create to decorate a mantle or to drape over a window.
Check your favorite thrift store for items like yarn and crochet needles in the craft supplies section of your store. (@ design sponge)
Wreaths are often donated to thrift stores and can easily be updated with a few homemade additions.
This tutorial for loopy felt flowers and rosettes are the perfect way to dress up a wreath in bright Valentine’s Day colors with just a few dollars in felt (@ The Motherload)
Yarn projects are one of my favorites because they are so inexpensive to create and, frankly, I’ve got a lot of yarn in this house of mine!
These yarn wrapped letters are a fun way to repurpose a ball of yarn in your home and can be created with a variety of sweet phrases for the holiday. (@ Family Chic)
Buntings can be created from a variety of inexpensive or recycled items.
I love to use large pieces like a sheet, tablecloth, or curtain material to create my fabric projects because they offer so much fabric for your money.
Hunt for fun prints in pinks & reds to create a simple fabric bunting to dress up your mantle. (@ It’s My Story)
Fabric painting is a fun way to spice up a shirt or a bag for the Valentine’s Day season.
This sweet and easy tutorial for a fabric painted heart would be a fun craft project to try on a white t-shirt for yourself or for your kids (@ V and Co.)
Don’t miss these great posts from MomAdvice.com:
This week you will find me blogging over at the Snackpicks site sharing my top ten Christmas ideas for the family.
If you are looking for some fun family time ideas complete with great recipes and crafts, you will want to visit this post to read more! I am sharing a few of our favorite Christmas recipes and some great ways we celebrate the holidays without spending a lot of money.
The best part is all of the points you will score for all of the time you spend with your kids during this busy season! Who could argue with that? See you there!
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Christmas gift ideas under $25 can be a hard budget to achieve.
Today I wanted to share with you 12 great Christmas gift ideas under $25 that would be perfect for yourself, a great gift for your girlfriends, a sister, or a mother.
These ideas are actually something that I have been thoroughly enjoying this year and believe you will to!
I only like to promote smart shopping so these have all been carefully hand selected and are gifts I believe anyone would love!
Small Homes Grow Tight Families Print–
One of my favorite pieces of art in our home is this print that reminds me of our commitment to live in a smaller home.
I ordered this for our house and it is now one of my favorite things in our home.
You can personalize it with your own address and choose your own colors.
Supporting Etsy sellers is always on my holiday to-do list for unique and thoughtful gifts.
*Updated to say it looks like this particular sign is no longer available, but here and here are similar ones.
If there is one appliance that gets a workout in our house, it is our rice cooker.
If you eat a lot of rice or quinoa in your house, than this is a fantastic appliance to give or get.
I put the steamer on the top to work for our family’s veggies and the bottom is where I make our brown rice.
Once you have one of these little gadgets, you will realize just how much easier your dinner hour is and wonder how you ever lived your life without it.
Eddie Bauer Polartec Power Stretch Gloves–
I have gone through and lost a ton of pairs of gloves over the years, but I always am careful with this pair because they are my warmest and most comfortable pair.
If you are looking for the perfect gloves to receive or to share, than these are the ones that I would recommend.
My best friend had a pair and then she told me about them and I ran out and got a pair for myself.
If you have a hard time keeping track of your gloves like me, you will love the little links on the side that click them together.
These are also very cute!
Fleece Leggings (in charcoal and black)-
If there is one item that is my go-to item in the winter, it is my fleece leggings.
If you have ever worn cheap leggings, you know how cold your legs can get without a warm layer.
These are thin, but lined with fleece so it basically feels like you are running around in your pajama pants.
I wear these with my sweaters, with my dresses, and with longer tunic tops.
I am giving these to all of the ladies in my life this year and can’t recommend these enough.
Once you wear these, you will never go back to cheap leggings again.
If you are anything like me, it is difficult to journal with such a busy life and schedule.
I am absolutely in love with my One Line a Day journal because you have enough room to write a couple of quick sentences and at one glance you can see your sentence each day in a five year span on a single page.
It’s fun to see how many sentences get repeated or what you did exactly one year ago in one spot.
I bought this gift for myself on a girlfriend shopping trip, and it is one of my favorite things in my cupboards.
You know when a mug is just the perfect size?
Well, this mug is big and has enough room in it for loads of coffee and milk/creamer topping.
I use this mug daily and would love to get a couple more in other colors, but even in a simple white it is a surefire day brightener
Now that we are moving down my list, you can see my love for all things fleece and warm.
I bought two pairs of the Warm Regards Tights when I was visiting our local Francesca’s, on impulse, because they were on sale!
When I slipped them on, I realized they were lined in fleece and the best invention ever in the world for chilly church mornings.
These tights make wearing a dress more of a daily event for me in the winter because I am toasty warm in these and my boots.
I am a huge music lover and Spotify is where I listen to all of my favorite music and create my playlists for great music to listen to throughout the day.
Unfortunately, I have the free membership so I have to listen to annoying ads throughout the day.
Ever have an elegant dinner with your family and have a tampon ad blasting in the background?
It’s a mood killer!
I am hoping that Santa will be good to me this year and bring me a premium membership so I can take my playlists with me in the car and can take advantage of some ad-free listening.
This would be a great gift to give to any music lover in your life.
You might laugh, but my rice pillow is my most favorite handmade gift that my mother-in-law made me for me a few years ago.
These pillows are filled with rice and can be zapped in the microwave or popped in the freezer for a cold or hot pack for all sorts of body aches and discomforts.
In the winter, I zap mine three or four times a day and put it on my feet while I work or knit.
When I’m sick, it is the first thing I reach for to warm me up.
There are a variety of Etsy sellers that you can buy this from although anything in a houndstooth pattern takes this thoughtful gift to another level
Celestial Seasonings Holiday Teas–
My new favorite treat to myself is a cup of tea in the afternoon and I have fallen in love with these Celestial Seasonings Holiday Teas.
It is just like drinking the holidays in a mug and my latest favorites are the Gingerbread Spice and Sugar Cookie Sleigh Ride.
These teas would make a great stocking stuffer or would be a fun addition to your grocery cart to take home when tackling all of those endless holiday errands
If you are going to add any cookbook to your Christmas wish list, can I recommend the Picky Palate Cookbook?
This cookbook is filled with tried and true recipes that any picky eater would love.
The cookbook offers beautiful photos and real family recipes that any home cook would love to create.
Usually when I flip through cookbooks, I see one or two dishes that I might like to create. In this cookbook, there is not a single recipe I wouldn’t want to try making for my family.
Jenny’s personality really pulls through in this book with her sweet spirit and references to her sweet family.
I am lucky enough to call her my friend, but if she wasn’t, it still would be a cookbook that I would recommend buying for this holiday season!
You knew that this would have to be on the list, right?
I am so proud of this book and really feel like it would make a fantastic gift for anyone looking to live a beautiful life on a budget.
The book is filled with great recipes to share around the table, how to celebrate all of life’s big and small occasions, and how to do it all within a budget.
The book will be out on bookstore shelves on January 2nd (a slight shift in dates due to our reprinting), but is now available for pre-order. Here are some options for great places to order it! I also encourage you to hit your local bookstore to pick it up!
This post contains affiliate links.
Don’t miss these other great Holiday posts from MomAdvice.com:
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Christmas is my favorite time of year, but I know it can be a difficult time of year when finances are tight. I want to share with you how you can celebrate Christmas in a big way by shifting your focus towards great family traditions.
I have been getting a lot of questions on how families can celebrate the holidays when they don’t have the money to have the Christmas that they have been dreaming of. It can be stressful as a parent to not be able to have the holiday that you envision for your children, but a change in perception for the holidays can go a long way. You see, regardless of the economic turmoil, the holidays will never change for our family because our focus has turned to traditions rather than gifts.
When you make the switch to focusing on family traditions, there is a lot less stress in your life worrying about the gifts under the tree. After all, isn’t that what the holidays are all about? For me, it is all about family, about creating memories for my children that they will never forget, and it is about the love that they feel from us as parents.
Here are some of the ways we have have simplified the giving process and our family traditions that have shifted our family focus during this financially stressful season.
Several years ago I ran across an idea for buying four gifts for your kids in the specific categories of something they want, something they need, something to wear, and something to read. It has been a tradition that has stuck and I hope that my kids will continue the tradition with their own children someday. The kids love getting to help in the selection of the gifts from these four categories and I love the simplicity of shopping for these gifts We are blessed with a big family of generous givers so my children never have expressed disappointment that there are not enough gifts for them. In fact, this year they struggled to come up with four gifts that they really wanted.
Next year, we plan to give our children a Choose Your Own Adventure gift where they can select one fun family experience or a learning experience. Art classes, dance classes, a trip to a local museum, going to a fun show in town, going to a restaurant and a movie with mom or dad, or another coveted outing will be on the list.
We do this often with money gifted by relatives (last year was a family outing to the Nutcracker and cocoa at the local chocolate shop) to cut down on the excess in our home and to create a purposeful experience with our kids.
Create Meaningful Traditions in the KitchenChristmas to me is all about the food and traditions that can be created (and consumed) in our house.Some of our favorite traditions happen to be making a batch of our favorite sugar cookies to decorate, baking up gingerbread donuts for a surprise treat, or consuming gallons of hot cocoa with homemade peppermint marshmallows on cold wintry mornings.
In our family, each Friday night in December, we make a homemade pizza and bundle our children up for an evening of looking at the holiday lights in the neighborhoods. We blast the Christmas carols on the radio and bring along popcorn for them to snack on while they enjoy all the beauty of the Christmas lights. To make it more fun, we let them pick their favorite pajamas to wear and they think this is hilarious to get to wear their pajamas in the car. This year I am also looking forward to a little Christmas Lights Scavenger Hunting on our tour of the lights.
On Christmas morning, I make cocoa and gingerbread waffles for the kids. As a special treat, I shape the tubes of store-bought cinnamon rolls into a Christmas tree shape and tint the icing green for the tree. We eat this together after we open the presents and the kids look forward to it each year.
While these traditions might not sound like much, our children look forward to them each year and we get just as excited as them for these special meals.
Instead of focusing on ourselves, we try to do things for others around the holidays. This year our family’s holiday project was to create homeless care packages for the homeless in our town. It was such a great experience to do with our children that I hope to repeat a project like this each year with them.
Even if you are short on funds there are so many ways to give back that don’t cost a lot. Gather items for a donation to your local shelter, serve a meal to those in need, use your talent for crafting to benefit someone in your community, or take a peek at these painless ways to give back this season.
When my son was small we would take them to the fire station with a box full of goodies. I loved seeing the faces of the firefighters light up when they saw our treats, but more importantly, is the light in your children’s eyes when they take them around to show them the fire engines. This is one of the best days of playing Santa I had ever had.
On the first day of December, I try to set out a basket and small slips of paper. Each person in the family is supposed to write something about someone else in the family that they appreciate about them and stick it in each other’s stockings. On Christmas morning, we have something fun to look forward to opening, which centers on family rather than gifts. If you have smaller children, have them draw pictures for each family member and jot down the sweet things they say about their family members. It is truly a highlight of my Christmas morning and brings us all closer together.
Countdown to ChristmasWe have always counted down the holidays in fun ways with our kids. When my children were small we did a Christmas Jar full of fun activities for each day of December. We would fill it with fun and free activities- making a snowman, watching a holiday show on television, making a holiday ornament- anything that is inexpensive and fun for us to do together as a family.
As they have gotten older, our “use what you have” advent calendar still gives us the opportunity to do these fun activities, but fits a little bit better around our busy life. I wanted to create our own countdown to Christmas in a creative way, but I didn’t want to spend any money on it. I decided to use what I had to create our homemade Advent filled with fun activities and you can grab an idea list for activities over here.
These are just a few of our suggestions for ways to make the holiday more special and more focused on your family rather than a store-bought Christmas tied up with an expensive bow.
Whatever you decide to do, don’t forget to document these memories in some way so you can share them with your children. I started a holiday journal for the children and tucked in a copy of their sweet letters to Santa, their favorite holiday recipes, our holiday photo each year, and jotted down their favorite memories from the year.
My goal is to only leave my children a legacy of holiday memories, not a legacy of stuff under the tree.
| Gingerbread Waffles |
It is that time of year again and that means another Advent season. You don’t have to have a fancy advent calendar to celebrate the advent season, in fact, I have a DIY Advent Calendar made from items you already have in your home. This free DIY Advent Calendar is the perfect way to celebrate the holiday season without breaking the bank.
Today I wanted to share with you a “use what you have” Advent calendar that we created last year. It was such a hit that I plan to make another one for this year! This requires no pricey materials and is based around what the holiday season should be all about… being together!
In the years past, we have always had a Christmas Jar of activities. Each day we would randomly draw from a set number of activities and enjoy a holiday activity together as a family. This year, our life with our two children has become increasingly busy and scheduled. We have two school schedules, extracurricular activities, homework, holiday programs, holiday family events, and so much more going on. Our life of leisure seems to have taken a detour and I have had to be more thoughtful in our approach towards carving time out for what we would hope to accomplish this year.
I wanted to create our own countdown to Christmas in a creative way, but I didn’t want to spend any money on it. I decided to use what I had to create our homemade Advent filled with fun activities and wanted to share with you what we created!
Supplies needed:
A large circle punch (in scrapbook supplies at craft store) or a jar or glass for tracing
Tape
Scrapbook or festive holiday gift wrap
Ribbon
Marker
2 Muffin Tins
A picture frame stand or a place to prop your finished tins
I began this project by punching out 48 circles. On half of these write the numbers 1-24 and on the other half you can write fun activities to do with your children in anticipation of the big day.
Stick your holiday activity folded up inside of each muffin tin and then attach the numbered circles to each individual muffin tin. Secure with tape on both sides to hold your activities in securely.
Break out your trusty calendar and jot down the activities for each day to remind yourself what you need to plan for and what supplies will need to be purchased to accomplish the activities.
Add a little festive ribbon to the top of your muffin tin. Display the muffin tin by using a picture frame stand or finding a sturdy wall to prop it up with. Have your child draw an activity each morning to complete as a family.
1. Decorate the Christmas tree.
2. Big bubble baths with holiday music playing.
3. Go to the library to pick out holiday books.
4. Special popcorn and hot cocoa snack with a holiday movie.
5. Head to a holiday concert.
6. Decorate gingerbread houses.
7. Make Christmas cards for your special friends.
8. Watch a holiday movie.
9. Color a holiday coloring page.
10. Bake Christmas cookies.
11. Go see holiday lights.
12. Go see Santa in your local downtown.
13. Write a letter to Santa.
14. Pop popcorn & play a board game together.
15. Host an ornament decorating party.
16. Make gingerbread waffles or gingerbread donuts for breakfast.
17. Wrap holiday gifts while listening to holiday music together.
18. Go to the dollar theater and see a movie.
19. Go see the Christmas lights in your pajamas.
20. Deliver holiday treats to your friends & the firefighters in town.
21. Watch your favorite holiday movie.
22. Open one gift early.
23. Go caroling.
24. Do a holiday puzzle together
Total cost for this project was zero and very little money will be spent to do these activities together. The memories I hope to create with my children though, I hope those will be priceless!
It has been so much fun preparing for the holidays with all of you. Today I am concluding our post series with Pure Charity with some fun ideas for keeping your kids entertained on Thanksgiving morning while you are busy preparing all of that Thanksgiving food…or just preparing for all of that fun with those relatives.
If you haven’t been following along the past three weeks, I have been sharing about a great site called Pure Charity and how your holiday shopping can make an impact on the organizations you are most passionate about. Did I mention signing up for this account is free and easy! I really encourage you to join in!
Pure Charity is a simple, but awesome concept for giving back to those causes you care most about. Basically, you install a simple toolbar into your web browser and then it alerts you with a small banner at the top when a store you are shopping with has a partnership with Pure Charity. Click on that little button and you are making a percentage deposit into your Giving Fund. Your Giving Fund can then be applied to the charities that are important to you and that you have a desire to support.
The first week we discussed some elegant and simple ways to create the perfect Thanksgiving table. I love that these ideas incorporated elements of nature, along with thoughtfully purchased items to mix into your everyday items, and a thankful chalkboard where the kids can jot down what they are most thankful for in their lives.
Next we created the Perfect Pumpkin Pie for our Thanksgiving dessert. I found beautiful tools to create a detailed crust and serve ware that made the pie look like a little piece of art through the Pure Charity partner sites.
Thanksgiving happens to be one of my favorite holidays and I love to make these holidays special and memorable for my kids. Pure Charity asked me to show everyone what could be done via their partners and gave me a small budget to pick out some items that I would recommend for keeping the whole family entertained on Thanksgiving Day.
If your family is anything like ours though, you might not let those kids even get a chance to play any of their own games. You will simply be too busy dance battling each other to give anyone else the opportunity to do anything else (*ahem*). (Purchased through Best Buy).
I am working with Pure Charity, and Pure Charity has provided me with compensation for these posts. My participation is voluntary and opinions are always my own.
