Christmas Craft #2: Clothespin Santa Ornaments

Last year we made the Elves and Santa clothespin crafts for gifts. We also attempted to make glass ornament balls that were "painted" inside with glitter and paint which did not work out well at all.  Mr. No loves his crafts so we do handmade ornaments every year.  The tree in his room is covered with Popsicle stick reindeer and snowmen, hand painted clay ornaments from when he was a baby and these clothespin ornaments. This was one that I came up with from looking at a few different Santa ornaments that weren't quite what we wanted.

For this craft, you need a hot glue gun or an amazing amount of patience.  Again, Mr. No had just turned 5 days before we did these so I would say 4 years old with a good amount of help or 5+ for this craft. The purpose of our crafts is fun and working together so Mr. No does not do all of the work.  Just most of it.

Materials needed for 8 Santas:

8 Clothespins: we used the ones without the hinge
Red craft felt: 1 craft square should be enough
Red, black, gold and peach/flesh color paint
White craft foam
8 tiny red pompoms for noses
8 sparkly white pompoms for hats
16 tiny googly eyes
8 medium size pompoms (any color)
White ribbon (for hanging)
White glue
hot glue gun

First step is, of course, to paint the clothespins.  I cut out the mustaches while Mr. No was painting.  Basically with kids paint or even the cheaper craft paint, when we finished the last one, the first one was dry enough for the next step.  We started with peach or flesh for the faces and red along the body.  We let them dry a minute and then painted our black boots and belts. Finishing touch was a dab of gold paint in the middle of the belt for the buckle.  Here is Mr. No's wonderful paint job!

Next we started gluing the face together.  We found that the easiest way to position everything right was to work our way up. We started with gluing on the mustaches and then glued a pompom nose right in the little dip. I found that it works best to put the littler pieces, noses and eyes, in shallow lids or trays. They don't tip and are easy for little fingers to grab.

Next step was to glue on the little eyes. Mr. No used tweezers for those.  He was getting annoyed at the glue on his fingers making it hard to position the eyes.

This was pretty much the end of Mr. No's part of this project.  Depending on the age of the child, the next step will be the adult's part of the craft. Here are our hatless Santas.

I did this step with craft glue but a hot glue gun is a much better and less aggravating choice.   I glued the medium sized pompom to the top of the heads.  While they were drying, I cut out the santa hats.  I don't have any pictures of these steps, not sure why. This is the shape you want to cut out. Triangle with a curved bottom.  I made them a bit over-sized but that was my preference. I think they look cute with the larger hat rather than one that fits around perfectly. The photo below the drawing shows 1 with a snug hat and the rest with over-sized hats so they can be compared.

The pompoms help hold the hat upright and make it easier to glue on. Mr. No and I just wrapped the hat around and glued in the back.  Regular glue may take 2 or 3 applications to stick. Hot glue is the way to go, especially for the pompom on top. Once the hat was dry, I glued that tricky little pompom to the top.  This was aggravating part.  I really need that hot glue gun.  The hats could also be made the same way as the elf hats instead but they are so much cuter with the felt.

We finished up by gluing our ribbon to the back of the clothespin.  If you aren't using hot glue, cut a small rectangle of felt and glue it over the ends of the ribbon to help keep it in place.  Here is our finished ornament on Mr. No's tree.  He's so cute!  And everyone loved the Santas!

We haven't yet decided what we're making this year. Maybe ice skates.  I loved making those when I was a kid.




Linking up with:

Christmas Craft: Clothespin Elf Ornaments

I am one of those pinterest obsessed moms. I pin hundreds of things but I do actually end up trying quite a few.  I found this post, which I cannot read, and that inspired us to create our own elf clothespin ornaments.   Our elves came out even cuter than I had hoped. Mr. No had just turned 5 when we did this craft so I would say 4 year olds with patience or a good amount of parental help or 5 and up as the age for this craft.

Our materials (for 9 elves):
9 standard clothespins
green paint
glue
white foam
green foam
18 tiny pom poms: 9 green, 9 any color you want
18 tiny googly eyes
red ribbon

The majority of our art supplies come from Dollar Tree so this was a very inexpensive craft. We had a large package of standard clothespins that we had used for our counting clip cards and they were perfect for our elves. I drew a pencil line on the front of the clothespin where Mr. No should stop painting so the elf wouldn't have a green face and let him paint all the elves green.

Since kid's paint dries fairly quickly, we didn't have to wait long to continue on with our elves. I ended up cutting out the little collars for the elves.  Mr. No tried, the kids scissors gave him a lot of problem and then got frustrated so, since this is supposed to be fun, I cut the collars out of white foam. He attached them.

I took the opportunity to work on fine motor skills as well and we used tweezers to attach the tiny green pom pom noses.

He didn't want to use the tweezers for the googly eyes so those went on by hand.

Since we were doing Elves and Santas, I cut out the hats as well.  When given the choice between elves and Santas, he wanted to do both.  He loves to create. I thought he would be overwhelmed but he was happy to do them all except for the cutting. The hats were made from just 2 matching triangle of foam, one glued to the front and one glued to the back by Mr. No.   Then we added the pom pom on top.  We glued a white ribbon loop to the back with white glue but a hot glue gun would be best.

And there are our very cute and very easy Elves and Santas Christmas ornament gifts. Here's the post on how to make the Santas.  I have to admit that I am one who, even if I can guess from one photo how to make something, likes to see step by step instructions especially when working with Mr. No.  It lets him see how things will progress so he doesn't get frustrated when it doesn't immediately look like the end product. And I think his end product was adorable!



Linking up with:

No Time For Flashcards

Ikea Side Table to Lego Table

(This is the last of the playroom diy projects.)

When we decided to redo the playroom, I knew that we would need a Lego table for Mr. No.  He is Lego obsessed.  He can spend hours building and creating and his projects would end up every where.  I found the idea for this diy table at here at ikea hackers and made a couple of tiny changes. The most time consuming part of this project was twisting the table legs on.  It was completed in under 30 minutes (those table legs took forever!)

We really wanted the red table(Mr. No's favorite color) but they didn't have one in stock.   Since our ikea is over an hour away,  we went with black to match the curtains and shelving unit.

Instead of matching base plates, I used alternating blue and green.  I wanted it to be like land and sea for him.  I placed them down where I wanted them first and marked on the table with a  pencil so I would end up with an even border around the edge.

Instead of the putty they used, I used heavy duty double sided table. We already had it and it holds strong.  I'm not too concerned with reusing the table for something else when he's done with it so I didn't need them to be removable.  This is how I placed the tape to make sure it wouldn't come up while pulling off lego after lego.  The corner tape is key to keeping it properly in place.  I made our table about a year ago and the base plates are all still firmly in place.

To make sure the plates lined up, I used some 1x4 Legos.  It made for uniform lines on the plates and helped stick them down.  Last thing I wanted was for him to try to build and the legos wouldn't attach across the plates because they weren't in the right spot. 

It took all of 10 seconds after I told him it was finished for Mr. No to start playing.

We did get a little stool for him to sit on and I made a cushion for it but we usually all end up sitting on the floor around it instead.

I have to add that the rack of bins is a must have for the legos!  We had drawers for them.  They were a pain in the rear! A pain to find the bricks you wanted, a pain to clean up and a pain to get back in. Now we just start tossing legos into the proper bins for easy clean up and we use that large red bin on the top for all the creations that he wants to keep together but doesn't want on the table.  I did take an afternoon to separate them into bins by size and type. A little time consuming but it's so easy to find the bricks you want.   So there it is.  Simple, quick and easy lego table for half the price. 

Linking up with:

The Creative Connection at Create. Craft. Love.

DIY Simple Photo Labels

I realized when I finished yesterday's post that I didn't include instructions on how to make the incredibly simple and helpful photo labels.  The photo labels are a must have for any kid's room. It make clean up a breeze...even for H!

These do take a little time but are very simple and cost almost nothing. You definitely want a white background.  Nothing distracting so that the figures are easily recognized on your boxes or drawers.  I used the white lids from the totes we used to use for the toys and propped one up with the radio on the desk.  I set it up by and sunny window so I wouldn't have any brightness from the flash in the photo.  Here you can see how simple it is to set up the 2 lids (or white poster board or cardstock).

Mr. No loved helping by picking out which of the toys would go on the label and by setting them up on the lids.   This is what one of our labels looks like with just a little adjusting:

All I did was crop the photos to just show the toys and printed them out on cardstock.  It's durable and cheap.  If you have a laminating machine then you could just use that but I don't.  So I just used some thick clear packing tape on each side, cut it to look uniform and attached it to the fabric bin with double sided tape.

our bins are HUGE, so most bins have more than 1 type of toy in them

A little time consuming but can easily be done while watching a movie or t.v. show. Everyone who sees them, loves them, and even the smallest child can put their own toys away.  Mr. No loves that his favorites are showcased on the outside of the bins!