Moon and Stars
The other day the girls and I made some Halloween decorations. Yay for decoupage! Relatively simple, but elegant looking craft. One that can also be done at various skill and coordination levels.
Both girls love doing arts & crafts, but sometimes it’s hard to get the right craft for both of them. Sometimes, what I find is too fine motor skill intensive for Teagan, but I’ve gotten better at measuring her abilities. Most things do get aimed at Teagan, although now I try to get Ashlin involved too. She used to go to the play room, or outside and swing, with daddy. Ashlin gets a bit impatient with her coordination, and also tries to taste or eat everything. But she does have fun, and now can do a pretty good job. Teagan tries to rush through everything, thinking she knows exactly how to do whatever it is we’re doing. Once she realizes she doesn’t know everything, and stops to listen, she does great!
We each had one jar, made one votive. I had pre-cut the shapes, some stars and moons, a jack-o-lantern. Although Teagan could do the paper punch, she wouldn’t have had the attention span to do the whole craft.
Ashlin puts on confetti
I also had the girls do their decoupage jar in shifts. Ashlin needs a bit more attention than Teagan, but with glass and sticky glue, I didn’t want either to be too unsupervised.
Ashlin really enjoyed putting the Halloween shaped confetti on the jar I had prepared with glue for her. Her focus was intense, and she would giggle as she saw the paper stick to the jar. She also put a few pieces of tissue over the confetti, but lost interest soon enough. The lure of Blue was too strong.
Moon and Stars for Teagan
Teagan watched while I did a few swipes of the glue, eager to put her shapes on. She also did a great job applying the glue, ripping the tissue to small pieces – maybe the best part! – and putting it over the glue. I let her finish putting the tissue on Ashlin’s jar, then on my jar and hers.
Applying glue
Mom’s Jack-o-lantern gets orange tissue
Waiting to dry
All done!
Spooky Votives
I think they turned out pretty good! We may do some more for Christmas!
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Whatever! 
They are great!!! I like that. And I bet the ones for Christmas will be beautiful too. Can’t wait to see them. I might have to try that myself. Love candles!! The girls did wonderful. Ashlin actually looked hypnotized in that ‘intense’ picture. :-) Good job!!
LOL! Thank you! She was so focused on putting the confetti on the jar, the level of concentration was impressive. Teagan is very proud of hers, she asks to have them turned on during dinner.
I’ll have to hang on to some of the bigger jars, or even plastic ones, I guess, for Christmas. Maybe those would work too.
hmmm…plastic? with candles? don’t know how that would do. Do you still have baby food jars? They would probably make ‘cute’ votives. Just thinking.
Lisa has fake votives that are little battery powered orangey candle-flame-shaped things. They won’t melt the plastic!
aha!!! Stu, see….I’m too OLD to think about ‘fake’ votives. LOL That’s perfect for both kinds of jars!!!
Yeah! I only just got some for this project. I much prefer real candles, the smell, the flicker… These are much safer, especially as Teagan can’t keep her hands off :D
I’m glad to know that you are being ‘safe’. Not that I thought you’d go crazy and let the kids play with fire., HA HA…..At that age, kids don’t understand to keep hands to themselves even if it’s for their own good. 8-) and yes, thanks for Stu watching ‘your back’. ;-)
He’s good that way :D
I have a lot of my candles put up high, or away. I can’t wait till the kiddos are a bit more trustworthy!
PS. How would they learn?
They learn with less dangerous things??? Even the ‘flickers’ you have must not be ‘handled’ or else they won’t ‘burn’ is a way to teach them for ‘open fire’ things…Learned the word NO pretty early, but still tested it. I learned about burning by placing my hand on a hot coffee cup and tipping it over. I was about 4 or 5. Hard way,but knew from the point on…when I was told ‘hot’ I didn’t touch it..huh huh no way.:-) Not that I want your girls to be burned to learn, but sometines that is the way some learn. You guys are pretty good about explaining why when you tell them no, so maybe they will be lots older before actually ‘feeling’ any pain from learning.
We have had them touch the oven when it’s been on, to feel the heat. It wasn’t so hot that it would have burned them, but enough that they’d notice the difference. Same with the stove top, hold their hand over a burner just turned off to feel that heat without too much danger of their getting hurt. The stove really freaks me out, with the pots and Teagan being just the right height to reach up and put her hand right on a burner. Gah… Ashlin is still sharp table corner level…
Thanks for answering while I was focused on finishing Teagan’s afghan :)
really cool craft. I saw this and thought of you: http://warmhotchocolate.com/2012/11/06/kiwi-crate/
Thank you! I’m touched you thought of me :)
I’ve have heard about that site before, but never really looked into it. It looks awesome! I may have to rethink it, especially with the two!
=) I had just read this post about your craft and then I saw that so I just had to pass it on. I loved your craft… I might have to try that with Chloe!!
It was super easy! I got the idea here: http://www.gleefulthings.com/blog/?p=2668 and here: http://secret-agent-josephine.com/blog/2012/10/01/happy-october/
When I did ours, I put the confetti/decoration on first, then the tissue. I might do the Christmas ones with the decoration on top, as you can’t really see them too well when they aren’t lit.
like!
:)
I am so astonished by your arts and crafts projects.
Aw, shucks. They’re nothing big or anything… just time eaters :D
Love em’!!
Thank you! I’m sure your little boy would have fun doing them too!
He sure would!
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