Thrifty Holiday Crafts

Emma and I made a mother-daughter outing to our local craft shop yesterday to see what was left in the post-Christmas sale section. We found some cute wooden Christmas ornaments, originally $0.99, on sale for $0.29. I let Emma chose four, and was originally planning to save them for the kids to decorate next Christmas. I “saved” them by putting them up on our tree (which we plan to leave up until January 6th). Emma asked to paint them this afternoon, and I couldn’t think of a good reason to make her wait. We’ll come up with plenty of Christmas crafts next December, so why not extend her enjoyment of Christmas a little longer?

Technorati Tags: toddler crafts,seasonal crafts

Emma painted the trains using Crayola Washable Kid's Paint. I gave her one paintbrush for each color, so she only had mixed colors at the end when she decided she wanted that effect. Here are the finished decorations – she decided to go quite minimalist on the last gingerbread man!

One tip for Crayola washable products that I learned from a friend: don’t use a stain remover, doing so sometimes sets the stain! If you wash clothes without any extra products, everything comes right out. Emma has actually never gotten paint on her clothes, but her brother doesn’t share her perfectionist personality.