Paper Chain

I remember having great fun when I was little making paper chains with my sister and stringing them around the house at Christmas time so I thought I would like my children to have a go at making them.  So on the 5th day of advent they pulled out of their advent calendar a mini paper chain with the words written on it – Make your own Paper Chain.

Emily had her go first and I cut up some strips of wrapping paper that were too small to wrap presents. She decided she wanted to put them all face down ready for the glue to go on.

We ended up with two colours – red and white and so we ended up doing a bit of maths with a pattern of red and white.  Emily would repeat the pattern and managed to be able to say what would come next.

We were also working her motor skills with threading the strip of paper through the last loop.  She loves using glue but I would help her form the loop in the end.

Alexander had fun with his but he kept wanting to put the glue on before he put the strip through the loop and then the next strip would stick to the loop and he needed to be untangled.  His is not as long as Emily’s – he lost interest way before she did.  His was a 3 colour pattern of red, silver and blue which he had fun designing what order his pattern would go in.

Still Going

It’s almost as tall as Emily!

Advent Calendar

My sister is staying with us and wanted to make an advent calendar for her boys back home.  SO feeling crafty I went looking on the internet for inspiration and found this origami advent calendar.

So inspired I grabbed my 6×6 papers and folded into four – so they were a bit smaller than the ones on the website but ended up very cute and just the right size.

We stamped them from 1 to 24 and then arranged them in a diamond and Christmas tree shape on card

We then attached them with glue dots and I punched holes in the side of the card and tied together with ribbon.  We then stamped the front (should have done this BEFORE attaching the pockets but oh well)

Here it is standing up open

Now closed – I accidently dropped the tree stamp so we ended up with lots of trees 😉

Lots of fun and very very easy!!!!

Second Day of Advent

A couple of years ago I badly sewed a felt advent calendar and out it came this year, filled with ornaments, chocolates and other fun activities.

So today the children got paint your own angel ornament for the tree and Emily got stuck into it…

Finished!