Homemade Christmas Gifts

Not that long ago, I expressed my disdain for buying crap for the kids this Christmas.  My wife interpreted my commercial hatred to mean that she could still make something for the kids.  So, for the past week or so, she has been coming up with some pretty cool homemade Christmas gift ideas that have Daddy's seal of approval.  I guess for me, making something for the kids is more fun than going out and buying something that has probably been made by a child no older than my own.

My wife scoured the web looking for cool projects for the two of us (mainly her) to do.  Truthfully, it's been fun putting this stuff together for the kids and the fact that we're not spending a ton of money on crap they won't even play with fills my heart with Christmas cheer.  One of the coolest things about homemade Christmas gifts is laying the stuff out right in front of the kids and having them help you make it.  Cooking sheets, felt, magnets, and PVC pipe don't exactly scream "Christmas Present" to a child, so they had no idea.  Here is some of the cool stuff we (my wife) made.

 Animal-Shaped Crayons:  Our kids seem to love breaking crayons more than they like coloring with them.  Don't throw those pieces out, use them to make new crayons.  Learn how to make these Crayola Christmas gifts here.

Felt Mix and Match Playsets:  These are similar to the Colorforms play sets you may have played with as a child.  Or, at least the cheap, felt version of Colorforms.  Learn how to make these cheap Christmas gifts here.

Magnetic Play Board:  A really simple idea that I know our daughter is going to love.  We did a pirate them for the boy and a sparkly, butterfly and animal one for the girl.  Learn how to make these handmade Christmas gifts here.

Marshmallow Gun:  This is the one thing that I actually made.  It is awesome and you need one.  That's all you need to know.  Except maybe for how to make a marshmallow gun.

Crayola Payola

We have no more Christmas gifts to make.  We're done.  Finally.  We can put all the magnets, fabric, felt, and glue away for a while.  The last thing we did was pretty cool.  You know all of those broken down crayons in the bottom of your kid's box?  Turns out you can re-use them, which is good for us, because the kids can't seem to color a picture without breaking at least one crayon.

 You'll need:

Broken down crayons
Candy Mold
Tin Cans
A Pot

Before you get started, you'll want to save up some tin cans.  So, next time you crack open some green beans, be sure to set those cans aside.  We didn't think about this before we started, so the girl and I had a Spaghetti-O eating marathon.  Four empty cans later we were ready to start.

First you want to unwrap all the crayons and sort them out by color.  The girl loved this part.  She's all about ripping up things.

This is about all the kids can help you with.  From here on out it's adults only.  Things are about to heat up, so while you fire up the stove top, have the kids clean up that mess.

It's important to teach your kids to clean up after your messes. This will free up more time for yourself.

While they are doing that, you need to grab a pot and start boiling some water.  If you have any large pieces of crayon, break them up into smaller pieces.  Once the water is boiling, place your crayon pieces into a tin can and set the tin can into the water.  If you are making multiple colors, you're better off using the color spectrum order.  In other words, make yellow crayons first, then orange, then red.  Make green, then blue, then purple, brown, and black. You get the idea.

We made the mistake of using red first. These cans don't wash easily, so we had to toss it to make our next batch.

Crayons melt quick and the can heats up in no time at all.  Grab some mittens and somethings to stir that mix with.



When your crayon mix looks like some kind of soup that you'd find in a Dr. Seuss book, you're ready to pour your crayons.  Lay out your candy molds and start pouring.  Don't be an idiot; use protection.

When you're done with one color, you can try to clean that tin can out, or you can save yourself the headache and just use another one.  The next can we did yellow, orange, and green in without mixing the colors too badly.  Just rinse out the can and wipe it down the best you can and move on.  Once you have all of your candy molds filled you can stick them in the freezer for a few minutes to harden them up.

Pull your molds out of the freezer, pop them out and you have yourself some brand new crayons for the kids to break.

Find more Christmas Gifts To Make.

Gettin' Felt Up

You want to talk about cheap Christmas gifts?  Then let's talk felt.  Merry Christmas kids, here's some felt for you.  When my wife first mentioned this, I was pretty skeptical.  When she said felt was a nickel a piece, I was in.  The idea is pretty simple.  If you remember playing with those cool Colorforms sets when you were a kid, it's the same basic idea.  Except, instead of paying ten bucks for one, you pay fifty cents and your kids will have the same level of excitement.

Sadly, I could not find a picture of the Ghostbusters, Thundercats, or He-Man Colorforms sets I used to have.

Here's a list of what you need:

Felt
Scissors
Imagination

Step one:  Cut out felt.  Step two:  You're done.

Here are a few of the scenes that she made for the kids.

Are they cheap?  Yes.  Will the kids enjoy playing with them?  Probably as much as they would a store-bought one.



Learn how to make more Cheap Christmas Gifts.

Magnetic Playset

Of all the handmade Christmas gifts my wife has made, I think the kids will like this one the most.  I know the girl will love hers, because she can't leave the magnets on our fridge alone.  Most of the stuff for this project we had lying around the house anyway, so I think it cost us around five dollars to make this masterpiece.

Here's what you need:

Cookie Sheet
Fabric
Magnets
Stickers
Glue
Scissors
Index Cards
Duct Tape

We had some old cooking sheets that we were going to throw out, so we decided to up-cycle them into this project.  You can also purchase a new cooking sheet from Wal-Mart for 74 cents.  The fabric was under one dollar (again, at Wal-Mart) and the magnets were six dollars for a box of 50.  I think that works out to 12 cents a magnet.  We bought some nice, sparkly stickers for around two or three dollars and everything else we already had.   Putting it all together was pretty easy.  Easy enough that the girl helped us work on brother's gift.

The magnets are simple.  Place the stickers on index cards, cut out the cards, then glue them to the magnets.  Done.

The tricky part is getting the fabric to lay smoothly on the cooking sheet.  Apply some glue to top of the baking tray and place your fabric down.  Smooth it out from the center to the sides.  Wrap the fabric over the sheet and onto the back.  Glue the fabric to the bottom of the cooking sheet.  Finally, cover the seam where the fabric ends with some duct tape to keep it from pulling away and coming unglued.

Glue the fabric to the back.

Kids love to pick at things so you better tape those ends.

There you have it.  A homemade Christmas gift that cost somewhere in the neighborhood of four or five dollars.

Check out these Handmade Christmas Gifts.

100th Post!!! Messy Baby Photo Contest

As a thank you to all of my friends and family that have been reading the blog and plugging me on Facebook, I thought it'd be fun to have a little photo contest giveaway.  Here's how it works:  Correctly identify what is covering the baby and you'll be entered in to a drawing to win a free book of your choice from BiggerBooks.com.  Be sure to leave your answer in the comments section below.  Click the photo and zoom in for a closer look.  You can keep guessing up until Christmas Eve when I announce the winner.

Here are a few samples of the reads you can find at Bigger Books.  Click the cover for more information.





Good Luck!!!

Don't Eat Your Diaper

I had to enforce some diaper discipline awhile back when I caught the baby tearing at her diaper, ripping off little cottony pieces and eating them.

Apparently, her diaper was tastier than anything I had been feeding her that day.  She didn't like Daddy telling her that diapers weren't for eating.

Her reaction. (Photo edited to increase sadness)

 This has been a major problem we've had with the baby.  She puts everything in her mouth.  We didn't have this problem with the first two kids and I think it has come back to haunt us with #3.  The things I've seen this girl eat amaze me:  dirt, dog food, and a couple of times, I've seen her make a run for the litter box.  So, I guess it shouldn't have shocked me to see her eating the diaper.  That's probably one of the safest things she has put in her mouth.  But then it happened.

She ate another diaper.

But, it wasn't one she was wearing.

It's one she had worn.

And used.

To its fullest potential.

I'll spare you the horrific details and I certainly won't make you look at a picture.  But I will say this.  Never keep the dirty diaper pail next to the baby's crib.  If you have absolutely no other place to put it, make sure that all poopy diapers are wrapped up and that the lid is properly secured.

Frustrating Moments in Parenting #12

"Anything involving kid footwear"

There is nothing easy about kids' shoes.  Some of the most frustrating moments in parenting revolve around the presence or absence of footwear.  I don't understand how a child can own eight pairs of shoes yet you can never find a complete set when you need it.  Or, if you do find a complete set, it's not the right type of shoe.  The girl has her Christmas dress on and the only pair of shoes I can find are her Dora tennies.  According to my wife, that would be a serious fashion no-no.  I say Velcro up because we're already running ten minutes late to grandma's house and she'll take the stupid shoes off as soon as we get there anyway.

 You can barely see the shoes anyway.

 Besides, pink and red match anyway right?

 Even more frustrating is trying to teach your kids to get the shoes on the right feet.  It doesn't matter if they know their left from their right or not.  Those shoes are going to trip them up.  We finally had to resort to drawing smiley faces on the insides of each shoe.  The girl has watched enough Disney princess movies to know what kissing is now, so we just tell her to make her shoes kiss.  Her shoes are usually on the correct foot now.

These shoes were made for kissing.

 You would think that once your kids know how to get shoes on the right (and left) foot, things would go smoothly.  Sorry, but it doesn't.  You still need to teach them how to tie their shoes.  I'm not even going to get into that, because that's a whole different rant.

Even with Velcro straps, "tying" shoes is frustrating.  For some reason, the boy thinks it is too much trouble to take an extra 1.2 seconds to unstrap his shoe before sliding his foot in.  Instead, he'd rather struggle to ram his Sasquatch-sized sole right in.  If he does manage to break through, chances are, his toes took the tongue with them.  Now he gets to pull his foot back out, pull the tongue up, and resume ramming.

When it comes to parenting, nothing is easy, especially kid footwear.

Frosty the Spoonman

The local Library wrapped up their Christmas events last Saturday with a party and some more easy Christmas crafts for the kids.  Before I get into the craft making, let me offer a little parenting advice.  If you want to get your kids to go anywhere or do anything, you have to be careful about how your presentation.

For example, if we would have told the boy we were going to the library, he would have cried, moaned, and said he wanted to stay home.  However, when we said we were going to a party, he was all about it.  He even shut off his favorite movie, put on his shoes, and buckled himself in the van without saying a word.  He was ready to party.

Imagine his disappointment when we pulled the van in here.

The dialogue that immediately followed:

The Boy:  "Dad, why are we going to the library?  I thought you said we were going to a party."

Me:  "We are.  The party is at the library."

The Boy:  "Why would anyone throw a party at the library?"

Me:  "Excellent point son.  Let's discuss it inside."

At least we managed to get him there.

Every time we go to one of these library events, I have high hopes that we'll make it through the thing without anyone crying, shouting, or calling DCFS.  Last week's homemade Christmas ornaments trip went pretty smooth, this week shouldn't be much different right?  Well, right actually.  It did go pretty smooth.  You thought I was going to have a good kids-melting-down-in-public story huh?  Sorry, it was a boring trip.  It is the library after all.

This week's craft was pretty easy for the kids, so easy that the baby made one too.

Guess which one the baby made.

Here's what you need:

Plastic spoon
Rubber band
Cloth strip
Hair ties
Pom-pom
Permanent Marker (Orange and Black)






First you want to tie the rubber band around the neck of the spoon.  This will help to keep the scarf in place.

Tie your cloth scarf around the neck and then draw Frosty a face.  The stocking cap is where the real fun comes in.  We used a hot glue gun, but you could probably just use some good old super glue too.  You will need three different hair ties for the cap.  Two of the same color and one different for the middle.  Glue each one on and then add the pom-pom to the top.  That's it.  Easy right?

You can also turn these into Christmas ornaments if you tie a string around the stocking cap.  That's actually what the librarian had in mind, but the kids decided they just wanted to play with the spoons instead.  Play, as in sword fight.







And, just because it was stuck in my head the entire time I wrote this post....