Anyway... so today Emma had her preschool class party and she gave her teachers the swirly paint ornaments she and I made for them earlier this month. These ornaments are easy to make and usually turn out pretty awesome looking.
A friend was asking how to make them, so in case you're curious too, here's how: Get some clear ball ornaments from Michaels and some acrylic paint. Start with a small amount of paint. (6-8 drops of 3 different colors is a good start.) Work it around by shaking and tapping, adding more paint if necessary. It does take a while to get the whole thing covered, or you can leave some of the glass still showing for a neat window effect. Put a paper towel in the well of the carton the ornaments came in, then sit the ornament upside down in that for several days to let the excess paint to drip out. After that, sit them upright for several more days to let the inside dry completely. When it's all dry, put the ornament top back on. If you want to give them for gifts at Christmas, my advice is to start making them around Thanksgiving so they'll have plenty of drying time.
Yesterday, my "makings" consisted of more mini banana bread loaves to give out to neighbors/friends/family, and my first batch of this year's Christmas cookies. Last year I made more Christmas cookies than we knew what to do with--more than we got around to eating before they got stale or kind of funny tasting. (Think--Christmas trees for Valentines day... ?) So I determined not to make the same mistake this year. But after making it to the half-way point of December, I decided I had to have at least one batch of my favorite, easy bar cookies.
Easy Bar Cookies
2 cups flour (I use 1 cup whole wheat, 1 cup white)
1/2 cup brown sugar
3/4 cup butter
6oz chocolate chips
Cut the butter into the flower/sugar mixture until crumbly. Press into an ungreased 9x13 pan. Bake for 25 mins at 325 degrees. As soon as it comes out of the oven, top it with 6oz of chocolate chips. Give the chips 2-3 minutes to get all melty, and then spread them around, covering the top. The original recipe calls for topping the melted chocolate with crushed pecans (so yummy!) but since there's a nut allergy in our house, I used ball sprinkles and peppermint chips instead.
Finally, today we made some fun Christmas tree paintings. Emma had a couple of those spikey balls, as seen in the picture, and I thought they might be fun to paint with. So we used them to paint Christmas trees, and then used q-tips to dot ornaments all over the trees. Fun painting project!
So now you have 3 new ideas of things you can make with your kids this Christmas season. If you make anything fun with your kids this time of year, or even over break when they're home from school, I'd love to hear your ideas
1 comment:
So that's what Emma did with her spikey balls? Good idea. :) I have a bunch left over, we should try that.
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