Thank you Thank you!

Thank you notes . . . this year I wanted Monkey to be a bit more involved. I had grand plans of him painting or drawing a picture for each one, etc. but unfortunately, Monkey's artistic output is neither on demand nor as prolific as his presents this year! But as Tim Gunn says, "Make it work!"

As you know, I love Kids Craft Weekly (KCW), so I borrowed her idea of making collages with glitter glue and then took the few pictures he did make, chopped them up and was able to make a bunch of notecards.

Just do it:

First you'll need to get your kid to make some art. Follow the directions above at KCW for the glitter glue pix (#2 Christmas Colors). I actually only used four of the sheets pictured below (decided to keep the yellow one whole for the art wall) and made 10 notecards with enough leftover I could have made a few more.



Hints and Warnings: This can be messy and you need to do some prep to make the glue and cut out a bunch of "stuff" to use for gluing. You might want to do all the prep away from the kiddos as Monkey went a little overboard in adding glitter & food coloring. Some batches were pretty solid (more glitter than glue with my glitter boy at the wheel) and made for some THICK pictures. He really enjoyed painting with the glue more than using it to glue stuff down too. I think I'll just mix glitter with tempera next time or just use the glue sans collage items. If your child is a color mixer (like mine) stick to one color of glue and you'll get more usable output. Red + Green = Brown. Normally I don't mind - it's all about the process and not the actual art - but since you're trying to put something cute on paper for relatives & friends . . . you aren't really looking for brown glitter smears!

Fast and easy - just get the paints, markers, crayons or dots (which I love) and have your kid go crazy on a few pages. The art work can be sparse and the cards will still turn out well (just use the most colored on portion).



Personally, I would do the next few steps alone if you have a younger child just for you sanity :) but they could help glue if you are more patient than I am!

Take an 8 1/2" x 11" piece of cardstock and cut in half to make two 5 1/2" by 4 1/4" cards. This is my favorite size card because you can make two out of one sheet of paper with no waste and they're not too huge to fill with writing! You can get envelopes (A2) at any paper store to fit. You can also just get a pack of pre-cut cards if you don't want to bother with cutting. You can also just use plain construction paper if you don't have cardstock lying around.

Then trim your child's artwork to approximately 4" x 5". At this point pick the parts that are most pleasing and chop away.



Affix to the front of the card with any type of adhesive. I used YES! paste just because Monkey went crazy with the glitter in a lot of spots so I knew double-stick tape or my favorite Tombo adhesive probably wouldn't make it through the mail.

For more kid "thank you" inclusion I like to have a conversation with Monkey about each gift. Sometimes I'll write the conversation verbatim on the card or I'll add what he said when he first opened it if it's a gem. For instance, when opening a construction loader from Aunt Lexy he said, "Oh!!" then paused (with appropriate reverence) and said, "It's bea-uuuutiful!"

Super Saxoflute conversation:

Mom: Why do you like it?

Monkey: Because it's beautiful! and fun!

Mom: Why is it fun?

Monkey: Because I love it - that's why I love it!!! Let's play marching band!

Mom: If Kevin was here what would you tell him?

Monkey: When he comes here I will say Thank you. When do I see him??

This project would also make a great set of notecards to give to a grandparent.

Countdown's On

The advent calendar is finally finished (just in time)!

Lately Monkey has been really into the trappings and traditions of holidays. Birthdays are all about cake, candles, parties and presents. He's got that down. He even knows that Santa brings him a present (not sure why but he's down with it). He doesn't want to go near Santa mind you - but he wants him to bring him some loot. Monkey has decided he wants a marble maze. He's been looking at catalogs and that's what he's landed on the past week or so. Today in the car he spied some Christmas lights and he spontaneously shouted, "I want the marbles that go round and round and round for Christmas. I so excited!" So this year he gets it that we just had Thanksgiving and next is Christmas - more food, fun, family and presents. What could be better? To capitalize on all this excitement (and to maybe slow down the, "is it Christmas yet?" questions) I decided to start a tradition with an advent calendar. I originally wanted a little house with drawers and such but they cost an arm & a leg and we're attempting to tighten our belts.

Luckily, I got some great ideas from Kids Craft Weekly. My goal was to use only paper and materials I had on hand. I dug up enough paper but couldn't round up enough ribbon to match. So I decided to make the handles of the cups out of the paper I was using. It would have been great if I had a mini stapler (or wasn't out of staples) but I had some double-stick tape. I was home free! But the next day I saw the tape wasn't holding and half the handles had popped off. So time for regular tape on top of the double-stick (so for those playing at home use a mini stapler!). Finally, to top it off, I did buy some 97 cent ribbon and a package of mini clothespins. So I spent about $2.50 for this project and that's well below the over $100 for the coveted house advent calendar.

It turned out pretty good and was relatively easy. You could still get one done if you're so inclined. I'm filling each cup with a small slip of paper with an activity and a small treat. Some will be inexpensive toys and some will be edible. Many things I already have won't fit in the cups so I'll put "look in your toy box for a surprise" if it's too big. I put it up after Monkey went to bed so I'm excited for him to see it this morning!

She's Crafty

Don't worry, not like in the Beastie Boys song (Stacey, I know you're reading this and chuckling) and now that song will be in your head all day - you're welcome. And since I'm crafting and have no time to blog . . . I thought I'd give a shout out to some cool sites so you can get your craft on. I'm desperately trying to finish an advent calendar and I'm determined not to buy anything for it (luckily, I have a lot of card-making items that I'm scavenging through but it's getting harder - I may have to cave - I'll write about it all when it's done).

The inspiration (and directions) for the calendar are from Kids Craft Weekly. I highly recommend this site and e-letter. Amber puts out a free email newsletter with all sorts of great ideas for crafting (with kids of course). She also just put out a Christmas Craft book for $5.00. It's a great way to kick start the season. Seriously, check out this site and get to it!

Another one you may already know about is the Crafty Crow. They pull from all over the blogosphere and grab great crafty ideas. I love this site just for the awe (and ahhhhh!) factor. I am SO not as crafty as these people! But I aspire and it's nice to read and think - someday. Maybe.

Enjoy! Oh and here is a direct link to the directions for the advent calendar I'm attempting. It's the one with the origami cups. Wish me luck! All the ones to buy were too far out of the budget - paper is just right!