Life With Full Hands: Craft time

This year I decided that we should make some decorative items for the Christmas season. Last year was taken up with the preparations of a baby coming (can you believe Aubrey will be a year old next month!!). Only the essentials got done. On top of that we have really been working on our goals to unify our family. That includes no movies, or computer games. We've already bought a bunch of board games for us to enjoy as a family. Next up the sleeve are some changes in our focus in homeschooling. Maybe putting on some plays, learning musical instruments, or starting a 'tea time'. On shopping day I bought some cheap supplies for us to make some crafts. Following the Charlotte Mason idea that handiwork should be productive (no pipe cleaner and paper crafts that do not serve a purpose) I came up with a couple of ideas for us to work on. We had a bunch of glass jars that I had saved, and I bought some tissue paper to make the 'stained glass jars' you see below. I also bought some felt and embroidery floss for us to make some ornaments. This was the first time in a LONG time we all did a craft together. Everyone enjoyed themselves, and everyone loved how they turned out. I took a few pictures of the decorating, and some of the finished jars.

Jed and Jonah really enjoyed making these. Jed's was quite unique in that he didn't want his papers to be glued flat to the jar.

I was surprised that he really stuck with this to the end. I thought the stickiness of the glue may have overwhelmed him (sensory issues), but he did great!

Each of the girls had an idea of what they wanted theirs to look like. Some wanted a color theme, some wanted their papers to be ripped as opposed to cut. Flannery wanted only one layer of the papers with little over lapping.

I thought my middle kitchen counter may never be the same again with all that glue :-) Thankfully we cleaned up right away and it was easy to clean. Jonah was a bit obsessed with the glue. He wanted to keep painting it on, and painting it on everyone else's jar. That did not go over well with the others.

Here they are all lined up. Jonah's is way in the background. He kept coming over and moving it out of the line up. Silly boy.

So from youngest to oldest, here are our creations. This is Jonah's. It has abut 50,000 layers of glue on it :-) But I have to say he really did a great job.

Jed's creation. I love the rough around the edges look.

Saoirse's. The girls have been working on making things for each other for Christmas, and so a lot of time they are off in different rooms of the house to make their things in secret. So this was a nice change for all of us to be working on something together.

Flannery's jar. It was neat to see them all really taking care in the making of these. It wasn't a case of just slapping on some paper and pouring some glue over it. They really had a plan in their head that they were following, even if their goal was just to have a different color touching each other.

Both Moira and Isabella decided to put some shapes in theirs. Hearts to be exact. Here you can see one of the hearts on Moira's jar. Her hearts were scattered over the jar.

Isabella's hearts were evenly spaced out. Unfortunately it was hard to see when the lights went out. She used a red background with yellow hearts on top. In the light they show up, but disappear when the lights are out.