Day 343

Painting Ornaments

Every year (well almost) since I can remember, I have made tree ornaments at Christmas time. It started with me and some dried pasta and nail polish in the basement of my childhood home and has evolved to wood and acrylics on my kitchen table of my own home with my family.

I have always enjoyed this non-formal tradition I have established in my life and it feels so great to pass this tradition on to Adeline. This year, as part of our 25 Days of Advent Activities we are doing it again! I picked up these simple snowflake picture frame ornaments from Michaels a couple months ago (because I also have done this with Kindergarten and First grade students I know Michaels gets them early (like September early) and sell out fast and they often don't restock once the've sold out). This year I picked up only three, not the 25 that I usually do, so it made it much easier to actually find enough.

So here is what we did...

Supplies Needed:

• Wooden Ornament (does not need to hold a photo...I just like to make ones with photos most years, they make great keepsakes)
• White Acrylic Paint
• Glitter Paint
• Q-Tips (to use a no clean paint brushes

1. Using the Q-tip and white acrylic paint, paint the ornament white all over (do the back if you want, but not necessary)

2. After the white paint is dry paint with glitter paint using q-tips again. When you paint with the glitter paint most imperfections you saw after the white dries will vanish (so no need to touch up after kids paint, yes even if you are a perfectionist like me)

3. Put Picture into frame (if a photo ornament) and hang on tree (or give as a gift, something I often do as well) - finished product photo to come.

There you have it, easy and fun craft to make with kids. You could even do this craft as part of a Christmas themed party...it's fairly cheap and creates virtually no mess, yes even with 20 kids. Enjoy!