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.




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Happy Birthday Mr. No!

My sweet, wonderful, smart, kind, loveable, creative, snuggly little boy is 6 years old today!  We've had a whirlwind weekend of birthday festivities, including meeting Santa on the Polar Express, so I'm barely getting this out before the day is over. He had a great 6th birthday weekend with lots of fun, family and even elf on the shelf and Santa.  I look at him and miss my chubby little baby but adore my handsome little man and am amazed by the incredible person he is becoming.  Happy Birthday, Mr. No!  We love you!

Where Have We Been #8: Higgins Armory

It's so sad that Higgins Armory is about to close.  I know most of the collection is going to the art museum but it won't be the same. I have some great memories of going there with our Gram, watching sword fighting and arms demonstrations and, the best part, getting plastic swords we could attack each other with in our Gram's side yard. Mr. No has quite a few memories there himself.  He's gone twice with me and several times with his Nana and Pop.  I have to go one more time and get a photo of the building itself.  I meant to this time but it started raining on us and Mr. No had his cardboard shield to worry about. If you live in there area, go once just to to check it out.  It's not as big as it seemed when I was little but nothing ever is.

The first time Mr. No went, he was not even 2.  We went with his friend Noodle and her family on Halloween weekend to go trick or treating. The No's were the cutest dragon and dinosaur and everyone thought they were twins.  The costumes were not planned. Mr. No just wanted to be a T-Rex and she wanted to be a dragon.  They were adorable.

 

About a week ago we went again and, sadly, that will most likely be our last visit. There is one main floor of exhibits, while not very big, houses so many interesting artifacts. Armor, swords, all kinds of weapons, amazing for anyone to see really.  Here are the two sides of the main exhibit floor of the armory which is actually the 3rd floor. You can see a few of the larger displays in the middle and the crazy amount of people there to see it all before it is moved.

Some of the detail work on the armor and the weapons are absolutely amazing. And some of them are rather creepy...the armor with the smiling face just gives me the chills. I'm not sure why.

The array of weaponry is incredible.  Not that I'm all that knowledgeable about weaponry, but there were a lot of items I had never even heard of before. 

The next floor is a balcony that overlooks the 3rd floor and has more armor, etc. That is where the very cool samaurai armor and weapons are and, Mr. No's favorite, the Medusa plaque from the Roman empire. 

Here are gorgeously detailed arrow heads.

An adult could spend hours just reading about everything there.  Mr. No just wanted to rush around and see everything...and then head down to the 2nd floor which is the play area.  There is a huge chess board, large soft, block, wooden block, armor to try on and more.  Mr. No really just wanted to build with the castle blocks and at one point he had 2 other little boys with him.  The 3 of them built an entire city. He also got to design his own cardboard shield. He planned it all out and then put us to work cutting the shapes.

The museum will be closing at the end of December. If you're in New England, it's worth a look before it's gone. Early weapons, viking weapons, samaurai armor, so much to see and learn about. Yes, the pieces are moving to the art museum but it truly won't be the same experience.  They also have shows and demonstrations right up to closing day.  I have some great memories from here most of which ended in my sister and me sword fighting in our Grandmother's front yard.  We didn't look when we were there but plastic swords used to be available in the gift shop.  We really should get one for Mr. No...and for me!

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!



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No Time For Flashcards

Flashback Friday: Monkey on His Back

I've been so busy lately that I completely forgot all about posting anything for the past, well, almost 2 weeks. Things get crazy with Thanksgiving, Mr. No's birthday and then Christmas all in a row.  We haven't even made any Thanksgiving crafts this year.  Yikes.

This Flashback Friday is Mr. No with his buddy the monkey backpack aka baby leash.  We bought the baby harness for when went to potentially dangerous places like the waterfall where a one second distraction could be disastrous. I liked the idea that he could have safe freedom to roam in places that you'd have to keep a tight hold on him.  He loved that little monkey and wanted to wear him around all the time. It was super cute.