Christmas Crafts - Lollipop Stick Stars

To make these stars, glue together 4 fat lollipop sticks in a star shape with PVA glue and add a loop of ribbon. 

When dry, glue on lots and lots of buttons! Really simple for little ones to make. 

"When they saw the star, they rejoiced with exceeding great joy.

And when they were come into the house, they saw the young child with Mary his mother, and fell down, and worshipped him: and when they had opened their treasures, 

they presented unto him gifts; gold, and frankincense and myrrh."

Matthew 2:10-11

Christmas Crafts - Christmas Cards

This year I decided to give the children free choice as to how to decorate their Christmas cards. I provided them with stickers and bits and pieces to stick on.

As inserts to the card, Nathanael made some Christmas wordles. Wordle generates “word clouds” from text that you type in.We shrunk them to size and printed them off.

The children wrote their Christmas messages onto plain white stickers which will be stuck into the cards. I have found this to be an effective method in preventing young children making mistakes and spoiling a card!

Water Wheels

We had an interesting and enjoyable day out recently at Quarry Bank Mill where we found out about the cottage industry and how cotton was spun and woven into fabric. 

We saw water and steam power in action

and enjoyed viewing the most powerful, working water wheel in Europe!

We then made our own simple water wheel at home following these instructions...

...and here is it in action!  Please excuse the drying dishes!

Christmas Crafts - Robins

 

Today the children spent some time drawing and painting in watercolours onto the front of blank Christmas cards. We got photos up on the iPad of robins, one of our favourite birds. They tried their best to copy exactly what they saw.

The finished cards...

Using this pattern we sewed some...

...felt robin decorations

and Abigail sewed a robin for a Christmas gift for her Great Granny, framed in an embroidery hoop.

Christmas Crafts - Nativity Sun Catcher

Nathanael was keen to take down our autumn leaves sun catchers and replace them with something a bit more festive so we decided to make some nativity ones.
 I cut a silhouette out of black paper 

and placed it onto sticky back plastic so that when then the children ripped different coloured tissue paper pieces they were able to stick directly onto the background.

So simple to make, but what a lovely reminder in our kitchen of the true meaning of Christmas. 

"Therefore the Lord himself shall give you a sign; 

Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, 

and shall call his name Immanuel."

Isaiah 7:14

Christmas Crafts - Felt Gingerbread Men

Whilst out shopping, the children spotted gingerbread Christmas tree decorations made from felt. We decided to have a go at making them ourselves. We drew around our gingerbread man cutter with a marker pen onto some brown felt and then cut out the shapes. 



Each child chose their buttons and beads and sewed them on.

The shapes were stitched around in running stitch, stuffed with wadding and a loop of gold ribbon sewed into them.

My 5 and 6 year olds really enjoyed this activity and sewed them all by themselves, apart from needing a little help rethreading needles, and it took them about 20 minutes in total. Because the decorations are only about 15cm tall we are planning to pop them in as small gifts with some of our Christmas cards.

Christmas Crafts - Clay Stars

Using air drying clay, the children cut out some star shapes. Into them they pressed buttons of their choice and made a hole with a pencil for a ribbon to be threaded through at a later stage.



When the clay had dried, they were decorated with a mixture of poster paint and PVA glue.

A gold ribbon through the top enables the decorations to be hung.



"Where is he that is born King of the Jews?

for we have seen his star in the east,

and are come to worship him."

Matthew 2:2

Christmas Crafts - Bible Verses

Over the month of December, I am endeavouring to do a post a day on a Christmas art and craft project we have completed. To start this blog series, we have made some Bible verses to decorate the house and to focus our minds upon the real reason we celebrate Christmas.

I got the idea from here and here are the instructions as to how we did it.

Sewing with Young Children

Before I had children, I studied for an art degree, specialising in embroidery. Although I

 don't have time to do much of my own work now, I do really enjoy sewing with my children. Here are a few tips for sewing with young children (mine are ages 6 and under)....

 

• I have found felt to be the best material for little ones to sew with, and it comes in a variety of lovely colours. We get ours from Hobbycraft for 50p a sheet.
• Use thick, single stranded embroidery thread.
• Use a thick, sharp needle. The plastic blunt ones you get for children are no good unless sewing with binca or pre cut holes. Obviously, parental supervision is needed with sharp needles!
• Cut out the shapes before hand.
• Running stitch is the easiest stitch to master first.

 



 

• Adding buttons creates a really pretty finished piece. You can pick buttons up cheaply at charity shops; we buy our from Stockport market for a few pence each.

 

 

• Adding a ribbon hoop can turn simple sewing into a decoration.

 

 

• Add wadding to pad out your embroidery when making a 3-D piece.

 

 

•  Purses are very simple to make.

 

 

• Sew in an embroidery hoop to make a special gift.

 

 

 

 Happy sewing!

Thank You God

Today Americans are celebrating Thanksgiving Day. Whilst it isn't generally celebrated in the UK, it is always important for us to take time to give thanks and teach our children to be grateful for all that we have. One of our favourite memory verse is 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18 "Rejoice evermore. Pray without ceasing. In every thing give thanks: for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you."

 

Every year on Thanksgiving day we make Thank you God books.
 

The children have to think of the same number of things to be thankful for as their age.

 

Nathanael's 6 things

 

 

1. Food
2. Home
3. The Bible
4. Toys
5. My family
6. Books

Tabitha's 5 things

 

 

1. Paper and crayons
2. Cats
3. My family
4. Sweets
5. Socks

Abigail's 3 things

 

 

1. Our house
2. Our family
3. Our garden

Miriam's 2 things

 

1. Daddy
2. Mummy 

So here are my 29 things that I am thankful for...

1. The love of God, his mercy, grace and forgiveness.
2. Jesus my Saviour.
3. My beloved husband.

 

4.  My 5 children. I am very blessed.

 

 

5.  My mum.

 

6.    The freedom we have in England...to have a Bible in our own language,

7.    to home educate our children,

8.    to preach the gospel in the streets,

9.    hold church services in public and

10.  not suffer persecution for our faith.

11.  Hymns and hearing my children sing them.

12.  Listening to my children laugh.

13.  Hearing my children pray.

14.  Church family.

14.  Extended family.

16.  Our car.

 

 

17.  More than enough food to eat.

18.  Baking cakes.

19.  Lattes and chocolate treats.
 

 

20.  Our washing machine and tumble drier.

21.  Buying second hand! Charity shops and car boot sales.

22.  Our health.

23.  Abigail's heart. We found out this year that Abigail has got a congenital heart defect called    Double Aortic Arch and will probably require surgery in the near future. We are very thankful that it was not as serious as it could have been.

 

 

24.  The NHS.

25.  The beauty of God's creation and being able to share it together as a family.

 

 

26.  Parks.

27.  Family Days.

28.  Reading stories to the children.

29.  Sleep.

 

"Rejoice evermore. Pray without ceasing.

In every thing give thanks: for this is the will of God in

Christ Jesus concerning you."

1 Thessalonians 5:16-18