crafty!

Keeping a preschooler entertained day in and day out can be challenging.   When I say that I mean I constantly watch the clock and count the seconds until Andrew comes home and try not to lose my ever loving mind in the process. 

In order to keep myself sane and my daughter occupied I'm constantly on the lookout for cheap things to do with her.   Pinterest is my savior.   I had posted a few weeks ago that I had planned on doing this craft that I had pinned and we finally did it today.

First step, printing out the shapes.  I'm pretty sure I could have drawn my own outline of a candy cane and wreath,  but I do what Pinterest tells me to do.   Aren't I super good at printing out shapes? 

Okay, so then you have to cut the shapes out.  That's a LOT more effort than I like to put into a project, but my girl still cannot wield a pair of scissors (can that get her on an IEP? I'm trying everything to get her into preschool for free!) so there was no one else to do the manual labor.   Lame.   That's half the reason I had children.   As it turns out, I'm just as good as cutting out shapes as I am at printing them.

Baby Girl waiting patiently for me to finish cutting.... sorry chica,  there's like 7 steps in between the printing out the shapes and gluing on the pom poms.   Life's full of disappointments.

Shapes are printed and cut out.   Now comes the tracing.  OH MY GOD THE WORK NEVER ENDS.   Actually before you even get to the tracing step,  you have to cut open the cereal box you are using for the cardboard (the original blog posts also says you can use tonic containters.  By tonic, I mean soda.  Or pop. Or whatever it is you call tonic when you didn't grow up in Greater Boston.  DIET COKE.  Does that work?

The Little Guy watching our progress.   He wasn't terribly impressed with our mad skillz but he didn't fuss either.  That's a win.

Look at that fabulously traced and cut out cardboard candy cane.  Whoever traced, cut, and then traced and cut it again must be awesome.  And smart.  And beautiful.  And tall.  Well...  maybe not tall.

And after all that fun,  I glued on some yarn (because there is no ribbon in the arts and crafts box.   We accept donations).  

Viola!  Handmade Christmas tree ornaments that killed an hour out of our day :)  We made 6 different ones and I "helped" her on two of them.  She did all the pom pom work, but I just nudged her in the direction of picking the same sized ones.   Those are the ones that are going up on the tree.  The other ones I will find places for and toss them when the decorations go back up in the attic in January.