Quick and simple art, ready to display.

I have been very quiet on the blog front lately. Enjoying the warm weather and spending the holidays with my girls, relaxing, playing and just being present. It's been blissful.
School starts back in a few weeks and we will be back into our routine before we know it.

Although we were resting and relaxing we still managed to do a little low maintenance art.
This is a great way to show your children's drawings without going through countless pieces of paper (great for the environment) and trying to find places to store them.

This is all you need.
- a cheap frame. This one is from Kmart. $5 I think. I chose 8x10 but the size depends on where you will display it.
- a white piece of card, large enough to fit inside the frame. I had to cut this one down a fraction.
- Your choice of items to draw with. I had three different varieties to try. Washable markers and window crayons that I picked up from Spotlight, and Chalk pens from Birchalls. The chalk pens are pretty easy to find usually from newsagents or office supply stores.

An incredibly bad shot of the frame here but I think you get the gist. Very simple. Just insert the white card into the frame and you are ready to get drawing. Children can draw on the glass and wipe off when finished.
Each of the drawing pens we used had a different effect.

The washable markers were my first choice.
The colours looked so happy in the packet and I was excited for the girls to try them out.
The result was nice. Not very vibrant but the colours were still visible and the range of colours in the packet was a huge selling point for me.

The chalk pens were great to work with. Nice and chunky for little hands and the colours showed up beautifully on the glass. We only had two colours to work with but that was fine with Big Sister. Two was all she needed for a little self love! These were not so great for Peanut. To release the chalk you need to press quite firmly and she didn't have the patience to wait for that.

Lastly we tried the window crayons and these were by far the favourites with both girls. Easy enough for little hands to control and incredibly smooth to use on the glass. These were the best to get a result out of Peanut as she is still just getting the hang of drawing so not used to pressing very hard. These gave her a nice bright result without having to have too much control over the crayon.

This turned out quite well and I loved having ready-to-display artwork. Minimal effort, maximum impact. Perfect for lazy Summer holiday art.
The best part was how easy it was to wipe the glass clean when they wanted to draw something new.
Just remember to take a picture first if you want to keep a memento!

HANDmade Christmas craft!

You know when you were little and you asked your parents what they wanted for Christmas and they would say, "make me something" and you would roll your eyes and think "what about something from Target?" Yeah me too.

Well I have some cute little things you can whip up with your kidlets that they will LOVE.

I found this idea on pinterest and loved it.
Peanuts hands are the perfect size for the snowmen but Big Sisters were far too big so we tried thumbprint reindeer. I am pretty pleased with the results.

I didn't get any shots of the process. Let's just say that it took both Hubby and I to get Peanuts handprint on the bauble and we lost a couple in the process as they were a little smooshed, but we soon got into a rhythm and were knocking them out. Once they had dried I added the detail with a sharpie and coloured pens. Very easy.

The reindeer were super easy. Three thumbprints with brown paint and once dry I added the detail again with the sharpie and a red permanent marker.

Both baubles had the children's names on the back with 2012.

I know the Grandparents are going to love these. (Sorry to the Grandparents receiving these ones. No surprise for you now).

Christmas wrapping paper can be insanely expensive so we made some cheap but fun paper of our own this year.

Excuse the photos.The light was really bad but you should get the idea.

Butchers paper is great to use for this sort of thing. We got ours at Windmill but I'm told you can get it at Officeworks too.
We started with some green handprints in a outwards facing circle.

We then added some red dots to make it look a little like holly.

I bought a load of red ribbon at Chickenfeed before they closed. So I added a little because I have a very tragic but very real ribbon addiction. You certainly don't need it though. It looks great without it.

So there you go. Some HAND made Chrissie craft to do if you are stuck for ideas.

Happy baubling!!!!!!

Old Traditions, New Traditions

I'm all about family traditions!

I drive my family crazy with them!!!!
In fact if there was a 12 step program (Traditions anonymous perhaps???) my family would have me committed.
Christmas traditions are my happiest.

As a child we would have a few that were really important to me.
My favourite was picking out our Christmas tree.
Our house backed onto paddocks and over in the far back corner were a collection of trees to pick from. My Dad and his friend would go and cut one down, usually at night so no-one could see them, and carry it back home for us. The smell was DIVINE and so very Chrismassy.

                            That's my Dad. Hi-tailing it back through the paddock. 

When hubby and I became parents we knew that we wanted to carry on some of our favourite traditions from our childhood but also start some of our own. Peanut is still a bit small to understand them just yet but don't worry, I'm working on her. Big sister is just like her Mumma though and is a tradition freak!!

I thought I'd share with you a few of our favourites:

1. Christmas decorations
 Not one of our Xmas tree decorations are alike. Every year I take the girls up to The Design Inn and
 they pick out a special decoration each for the tree. When they move out of home they can take their      
 collection with them for their own tree.  I got this idea from a friend when I was pregnant with Big Sister and I'm so glad we started it. She has a lovely collection and it's so cute (and sometimes
 funny) to see what they pick. Big Sister picked out Peanuts last year as she was too little but this
 year she was able to pick her own. We always pick up ornaments from our travels too. So we have some lovely ones from all over the world.

                                                           Big Sister's choice this year

                                                                     and Peanut's

2. The kids always decorate the tree however they want. Let's face it - the excitement we get from Xmas comes from experiencing it through the eyes of children, and they get a real kick out of making all the decisions. Hubby always puts the lights on first, the kids decorate with their decorations and then I add the ribbon. Last but not least is the angel for the top which is a bit special as it was made by Hubby's Grandmother.

3. We always have our Santa pic taken with the Myer Santa. Now this started because of my obsessive qualities. We put each years photo in a black frame and put them all up on the mantle when decorating the house. I know this is crazy but I like having the same chair and backdrop in each photo. I can see exactly how much the kids grow each year. Oh my.... please don't judge!!!!

4. Christmas books. About 2 weeks before Christmas the Elves visit in the night. They leave the girls a book at the end of their bed and a note. There are so many beautiful Christmas books available and quite often they go on sale after xmas so you can pick up some cheap ones and put them away for the following year. We have built up a lovely little collection over the years. It doesn't take long and we enjoy sitting down to read them together.

This year we added 2 more traditions.
The Gingerbread Party we held last weekend and Elf on the shelf.

I have wanted to do Elf on the shelf for a few years now so this year I managed to hunt one down on The Book Depository and we started on the 1st of December. If you don't know much about it visit the website and check it out. If you have an elf and are looking for some inspiration check out here and here. My advice? Don't try the snow angel in the flour idea. It sticks like crazy to the felt. We found out the hard way.
Peanut hasn't quite got the 'Don't touch the elf' thing down. She LOVES him. Carry's him round for hours.
I can really recommend doing this. You don't need to buy the official Elf on the shelf. I know others who have used elves they have made themselves or ones they already had at home.
The idea is that Santa sends elves out to homes all around the world to check up on all the girls and boys. They report to Santa each night and then travel back to your home each morning. Turning up in a different spot each time. The kids just have to find him.

                         Here's our little Elf hiding in the Advent Calendar tree. Sneaky little thing!

So there you go. A few of our old and new traditions. What traditions do you have with your family? What are your kids favourite traditions? I'd love to hear from you.
    

Gingerbread decorating party

We held our first Gingerbread Decorating party last weekend. We wanted to have a catch up with friends before Christmas and thought this would be a great way to get together and have a bit of messy fun.
Initially we planned to make enough gingerbread houses for one per family. They could then decorate their own and take it home.
Here's the thing though. We only have a small oven. A small freezer, and we started cooking the night before. Hmmmmmm........... Not our best forward planning!!!! Once we had made one (and by we, I mean dear husband. He is the family's cook. It would have taken me MUCH longer) we realised that we would be up all night.
So we had a re-think and decided that gingerbread men would be much faster and easier. The kids could then decorate their own. Next year we will be more organised, I hope.

There were enough Gingerbread men for the kids to make several each. I am the Queen of over catering so there were far too many lollies.

We had asked each guest to bring a bag of lollies to share but didn't need them. In fact I sent people home with them and still have about 10 unopened bags of freckles, smarties, jubes etc sitting in my cupboard. Ready for Christmas I guess!!!

This was a great example of a party thrown together at the last minute that is still loads of fun. If I had spent more time on organising it I could have printed out cute invitations, made nice little bags to send the gingerbread home in, had a hot chocolate bar (I really wanted to do this but it was too hot). I have so many other ideas for next year but it was also quite nice to send out facebook invites, send the gingerbread home in little plastic boxes and just have cold drinks served in Santa cups. Low maintenance, very last minute and still very enjoyable.

I didn't realise that you could buy pre-made Gingerbread houses at the supermarket so one of my friends brought a couple with her. They were super cute once the kids had decorated them but if you are looking for tasty gingerbread houses, please make your own. These ones tasted like cardboard.

Needless to say I have big plans already in the pipeline for next year. He he!!!!

DIY Baby Beach Boxes!!

I have been itching to get at some Christmas craft, however life seems to have different plans and this week cuddling a sick baby is on the agenda. Poor little Peanut has been very sick since her birthday. So there has been a whole lot of cuddling and very little of anything else being done in our house.

I thought I would post a little something I did a few weeks ago.
In early October we took a family trip to Melbourne to catch up with friends and do a bit of sightseeing.
It has always been on my bucket-list to go down to Brighton and see the Beach Boxes so when we had a spare half day I persuaded my little family to jump on the train with me and head down.

I was so glad we did. They were so cute and we spent ages going from box to box checking out the colours, picking out our favourites, taking photos and chatting to locals.
If you are ever in Melbourne and have a few hours to spare I can recommend packing some sandwiches and taking the kids down.

When we got back I was doing a bit of cleaning and was about to throw some cardboard boxes in the recycling bin when Peanut started climbing in them. So when she went down for a nap I decided to turn them into her own set of cubby houses inspired by the beach boxes.

You can get some great coloured Duct tape these days. It makes them look fun but you certainly don't need to do that step.

I cut out some holes in the sides. Her favourite thing to do at the moment is post things!!!

Dodgy Duct tape job. Eeek!! Don't look too closely.

They certainly are not fancy and took about an hour to make (most of this time was spent with the duct tape). But they are quite cute and she loves them.

I deliberately didn't make them too flash because I knew they would get trashed pretty quickly but we are 3 or 4 weeks later and they are still going strong.

I put different toys in them every day to keep things fun and they are so easy to move around so we have them both indoors and outdoors.

If you have some spare boxes at home think twice before throwing them out. Kids LOVE playing with them. Older kids can create just about anything, Castles, Submarines, shops. There is no stopping their imagination!!!