Little Hands Wreath

 

Little Hands make perfect Christmas wreaths.

 

 

All I had to do was get Sal to hold still long enough to do a rough tracing of his hand to be used as a pattern. I cut out 9 little hands, overlapped them and glued them together ( which failed). My glue wasn't strong enough to hold them together, so I ended up stapling them, but if I were in the States I would have just used my glue gun or Aleene's craft glue. I had a left over bow from our Christmas Tree explosion that I topped the wreath with  and hung it from a 3M command hook which seems to be our ONLY option for hanging things here.

 

An easy, cheap way to commemorate baby's first Christmas.

Homemade Holiday: Quiet Book

A couple years back, I made our first born nephew a quiet book when he turned three. This year, one of our other nephews also turned three, and seems to be drawn to my childhood quiet book every time he comes over to "Uncle Nick's house". So, I decided that I would make him his very own book and give it to him for Christmas. I call this one Quiet book 2.0, since I have made some changes to my original pattern.

The main change I made with this book, was that I opted to use felt for the pages, like my friend Liz , over at A crafty B, did for her daughter's book. The felt just feels sturdier, and is easier to snap, button, and velcro to, than the quilting cotton that I used on my first version.

I like quiet books because they work on a child's fine motor skills, and they can go at their own pace. Some pages are meant to be challenging, with things like lacing, or weaving, and others focus on color recognition, counting, and day to day tasks, such as snapping, buttoning and using velcro.

Upon completion of the pages, I made a canvas cover complete with carrying handles, so our nephew can take his book on-the-go.

I hope it provides hours of entertainment ( & some quiet time for his mama!) for years to come.