Christmas in a Nutshell

Is there anything more cute or more meaningful than a 1” baby in a walnut shell?

Just thought I would share my very favorite ornament idea. We made 30 of these tiny reminders with the little ones at church yesterday, it’s a great craft to do with kids. And a good refresher on how to swaddle a baby for the adults ;).

It’s pretty self explanatory but here are the supplies I used- wire star garland from the $1 store, a walnut shell half, recycled craft paper shreds, a wooden bead (mine was clay because wooden beads don’t exist in this county), a teeny bit of stuffing for the body, and a square of white flannel. We used glue dots to make the little babies with the kids but hot glue is your friend if you’re making them at home.

I can’t believe Christmas is 11 days away… must sew… and paint… and cut… and drink hot chocolate and eat peppermint kisses by the bagfuls. Have a great Monday!

A little Activity Day share

Can I just tell you how fun it is to do crafty stuff with 8-11 year old girls? I love it! They are just old enough to do fun things with and use the majority of the tools for the activities with minimum injury and they aren't so old that they think my ideas are stupid or that they have much better things to do like text their top 90 favorite people and giggle uncontrollably all while whining "wait, I can't do this, can you do it for me". Teaching crafts at girls camp was brutal. I don't even like to think about it- shutter. You know I'll have 4 teenage girls at the same time eventually... another giant shutter :o).

One of my callings in church is Activity day with the 8-11 year old girls. I found a really cute idea for snow globe cookies from the blog Sweet Paul (definately a nice link) and was dying to do it with my kids. It donned on my a few weeks ago while it was still snowy out and cold how pretty the temple always looks in the snow and what a cute cookie scene it would be.

We have a theme each month and for January I picked the temple partly because I wanted to do this project and partly because we hadn't used that theme yet. The girls had a cute idea to use a flower cutter as a bush and it made it that much cuter. So simple and I think extremely cute, when you put the cookie in the right way that is. Mine happens to say Ball on the front. Nice. I didn't get a great picture but hopefully you get the idea. My biggest tip is to use gingerbread house icing and actually wait for it to dry before adding the sugar so it doesn't fall over 10 times.

This does have a really cute silver lid with cute ribbon tied on the top but of course I only have an open jar picture.

You know from this angle it kind of looks like a wedding chapel, hmm. Hope I didn't send the wrong message ;o).

Tomorrow I'm off to go pick up my husband, yay!! 7 days solo this time. I'm so ready for a vacation. 10 hours total car time (I hope!) with 5 kids to pick him up but it's so worth it. Why do I always mention 5 kids. I'm pretty sure you all know how many I have but I keep insisting on reminding you. I'll work on that.

Have a great weekend, but not as good as mine will be I'm sure!