Monday, December 19, 2011

ADVENT CALENDAR FUN!





I found this beautiful advent calendar a few years ago at a thrift shop in Jersey. Notice the 19th is missing the 1! Oh well, one of these days I will paint it on. But for now, it's all right. Ummm, oh yeah, my daughter can count to twenty and this might confuse. Guess that's a project for today!!
Last year when I did this advent calendar it got a little expensive as I had a gift or candy everyday! I didn't know any better. NOW, I have figured it out! She loves crafts!! Anything that she can make with her own hands is a real treat for her. So I decided to go the less expensive route. I hand wrote an activity for everyday up until Christmas.





We have homemade dough ornaments, popcorn and a movie with mommy and daddy, baking cookies, painting sun catchers (ok, I DID buy these but they were only a buck for 8!), painting pine cone ornaments with dollar store glitter glue, the list goes on!! Oh yeah, today she will be making homemade Christmas play-doh!! I'm thinking red and green food coloring with a dash of peppermint extract so it smells . . . well . . . Christmasy!!




Here are a few of the sun catchers. Aren't they festive?!




Here is the recipe for the dough ornaments, courtesy of all recipes:
Dough Ornaments

She painted them and then I wrote the date on the back and painted the whole ornament front and back with glitter glue to seal it. I beautiful keepsake that will last a lifetime of Christmas trees!




Here we made a Christmas chain. Dollar store craft paper and staples. She colored the paper, I cut them into strips and stapled them together interlocking each. She LOVED it!!




Watching a movie with the folks. We've done this a few times! Snuggling on the couch with us, watching an old Rankin and Bass movie and eating popcorn. So glad to pass these on to her, as I watched these as a child.





Breezy has her own tree in her bedroom so she got to decorate it herself. Picked her own ornaments and garland. One of her advent goodies (dollar store again!) was coloring some cardboard Disney Princess ornaments and putting them on her own tree. Her tree is actually doubling as a nightlight. :-)





Here are a batch of cookies that we made together. Scrumptious!!


So, I didn't have to break the bank this year for the calendar and everyday we do something crafty and fun. Love it!!

Will have to continue this tradition next year but I think I will have to include a Gingerbread House!! Homemade of course!!!

Have a crafty Christmas week!!!
Posted by Liz at 1:34 PM
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The Magpie's Nest

by Joseph Jacobs
English Fairy Tales

All the birds of the air came to the magpie and asked her to teach them how to build nests. For the magpie is the cleverest bird of all at building nests. So she put all the birds round her and began to show them how to do it. First of all she took some mud and made a sort of round cake with it.

"Oh, that's how it's done!" said the thrush, and away it flew - and so that's how thrushes build their nests.

Then the magpie took some twigs and arranged them round in the mud.

"Now I know all about it!" said the blackbird, and off it flew - and that's how the blackbirds make their nests to this very day.

Then the magpie put another layer of mud over the twigs.

"Oh, that 's quite obvious!" said the wise owl, and away it flew - and owls have never made better nests since.

After this the magpie took some twigs and twined them round the outside.

"The very thing!" said the sparrow, and off he went - so sparrows make rather slovenly nests to this day.

Well, then Madge magpie took some feathers and stuff, and lined the nest very comfortably with it.

"That suits me!" cried the starling, and off it flew - and very comfortable nests have starlings.

So it went on, every bird taking away some knowledge of how to build nests, but none of them waiting to the end.

Meanwhile Madge magpie went on working and working without looking up, till the only bird that remained was the turtle-dove, and that hadn't paid any attention all along, but only kept on saying its silly cry, "Take two, Taffy, take two-o-o-o!"

At last the magpie heard this just as she was putting a twig across, so she said, "One's enough."

But the turtle-dove kept on saying, "Take two, Taffy, take two-o-o-o!"

Then the magpie got angry and said, "One's enough, I tell you!"

Still the turtle-dove cried, "Take two, Taffy, take two-o-o-o!"

At last, and at last, the magpie looked up and saw nobody near her but the silly turtle-dove, and then she got rarely angry and flew away and refused to tell the birds how to build nests again.

And that is why different birds build their nests differently.