Recycled Paper Christmas Tree

I love this easy recycled paper Christmas tree. Use this simple Christmas tree craft as a fun way to help your toddler work on their scissor and sorting skills. I also love that we were able to reuse a few pieces of junk mail.

Materials to make your own Recycled Paper Christmas Tree:

Junk mail – we used the ads for Christmas trees.
Blue construction paper
Scissors
White paint
Q-tip
Glue

Set out a small tray of white paint, blue paper and a Q-tip. Have your child dot the white paint onto the paper to mimic snow. Kids love new painting techniques, and Q-tip painting is always a hit at our house!

While the snow is drying, have your child cut long strips from the junk mail. These strips will serve as the branches of your recycled paper Christmas tree.

Help your child sort their branches from longest to shortest. Once all the strips are arranged, glue them onto your snowy background. We added a star and a few ornaments to our tree as well. They were also cut from the junk mail flyers.

I love how easy these trees were to make. It always makes me happy when we can turn something that was destined for our recycle bin and turn it into art.

Here is a fun list of our favorite Winter crafts and activities.

We love creating from our recycle bin. If you also have a passion for recycled crafts, then look no further.

If you don’t want to miss out on any of the fun we are having at Housing A Forest, make sure to follow us on Pinterest, Facebook and Twitter.

Thanksgiving Activities – Weekly Kids Co-op #2

Thanksgiving is right around the corner. Here is a round up of creative ideas perfect for Thanksgiving from last weeks Kids Co-op.

Check out these fun Kids Thanksgiving Activities from last weeks Kids Co-op:

How cute are these simple Turkey Hats from JDaniel4’s Mom. They would be great at the kids table for Thanksgiving.
Adorable play Bright Red Play Dough Turkeys from Learning is Messy. Easy homemade play dough recipe.
How cute are these little Oreo Turkeys from Simply Home. I love the picture tutorial!
Set up a cute Autumn play dough station to keep the kids entertained while you are putting the finishing touches on the Thanksgiving meal from Two of Everything.
These simple Geometrical Turkeys are an easy way to work on simple shape recognition from Blog Me Mom.
I love this fun twist on the traditional Hand Print Turkey from 2 Big 2 Little.

If you were featured this week, I would love for you to grab a Housing A Forest button. Come back every Thursday to see if your creative idea were featured and link up any new ideas! (I will be using one image and a link to your blog.)

If you don’t want to miss out on any of the fun we are having at Housing A Forest, make sure to follow us on Pinterest, Facebook, Google + and Twitter.

Thanks for sharing your creativity with us. I look forward to snuggling in with a cup of coffee and browsing through all your inspiring ideas! Now on to the kids co-op party!

Kids Winter Holiday Hop

Christmas is by far my favorite holiday. I actually already have 6 Christmas trees set up. Gasp! I know it sounds crazy, but trust me the white lights are totally magical at night! Now that I have you thinking that I am ~~crazy~~ organized, and my house is like a magazine I’ll let you in on a little secret. My trees might be up, but there are baskets of clean laundry waiting to be put away, the table is still littered with our latest craft project, and there are dishes in my sink! So yes the trees are are up, but my house is far from together:)

It seems that time flies during the holidays. All too quickly the holiday season has passed by and I am left standing wondering were the time went. I can easily get caught up in the hustle and bustle and I miss out on what is really important. Time giggling, playing and making memories with family. Some of my favorite memories are the ones where we are around the table creating crafts, building puzzles or playing games together as a family. Lets stop all the craziness and take time this holiday season to enjoy the little things that make our family special!

Do you have any fun family traditions that you can’t wait to do this year? I love the Advent calendars that we do each year. One of our special Advent calendars starts on Dec 1st to count down the 25 days until Christmas. This countdown does not include any candy, but is designed to bring us together as a family.

The kids look forward to finding out what the family activity will be for that night. Some of our favorite family activities include a family hide and seek game in the dark, we love creating ornaments together (gingerbread ornaments), going on a Christmas light tour with hot chocolate, family sledding night, making snow ice cream and sleeping under the tree together. These are all simple ideas, but they all hold precious memories for our family. I would love for you to share some of your favorite family building activities I am always looking for new ideas to add to our list.

That is why am so excited to be apart of the Kids Winter Holiday Hop. This is a blog hop designed to focus on the spirit of giving and our kids. There are a total of 10 other wonderful blogs participating!

www.projectsforpreschoolers.com – www.stevespangler.com – www.rainydaymum.co.uk –www.laurakellydesigns.com – www.mamamiss.com
www.raisingfigureskaters.com – www.rockabyebutterfly.com – www.herecomethegirlsblog.com
www.housingaforest.com – www.creativelearningfun.blogspot.com

Make sure to hop on over to Projects for Preschoolers were you can enter a give away and link up your posts! There are 3 fabulous prizes that we are giving away, but you can only enter by going to Jen’s blog, so make sure you don’t miss out! (open to UK and US residents) I can’t wait to be inspired by all the wonderful ideas that make your holiday season special! Please feel free to share your favorite kid holiday focused idea at the linky party here.

Stained Glass Ornaments

Homemade Ornaments ~ Recycled Stained Glass Ornaments

Christmas is my favorite holiday. I love white lights and how cozy my house feels all decorated for Christmas. Kids love making special homemade ornaments to hang on the Christmas tree. Our little stained glass ornaments look great and are super easy to create.

To make these simple Handmade Ornaments, you will need:

Recycled plastic – we used the top and bottom from a plastic fruit container.
Sharpies – I have shared my love for sharpies before. Sharpies are permanent, come in so many bright colors and are are great on non porous surfaces.
black paper – to make the frame for your stained glass.
white glue

Cut your plastic into a circle, this will be the basis for your stained glass ornament. I pulled up a few images of stained glass for my kiddos to see. This gave the kids a basis for designing their ornaments. Have them draw the outline straight onto the plastic with black sharpie.

Color in the design using sharpie markers. Notice that some of the lines got removed in the coloring process. It is an easy fix by simply retracing the lines again with your black sharpie.

Glue the black paper frame onto the plastic and your ornament is all finished. I love how easy these little stained glass ornaments were to create and wonderful they look hanging on my tree!

These simple stained glass ornaments would look great as gift tags on your Christmas presents, or as a special gift to the kids grandparents.

Here is a link to another simple stained glass project that I my kids enjoyed creating.

I also have a Pinterest board to showcase some easy homemade ornaments perfect for creating with the kids. Don’t forget that homemade ornaments make thoughtful gifts or a cute present topper.

Owl Craft

Fall Activity for Toddlers ~ Owl Craft

I have a thing for owls, and I think owl crafts are just too cute to resist. There is something about their over sized eyes and fluffy bodies that make them irresistible. This is a simple owl craft is a fun exercise for toddlers to work on simple scissor skills.

Owl Craft:

White paper
owl template (I drew mine free hand, but here is a link to a cute printable template)
Brown paper for the owl shape
Patterned paper for the owls feathers
Black paper for the branch

The kids received a few Halloween themed treat bags while they were Trick or Treating. I was about to throw them into the recycle bin, when I noticed the fun patterns on the bags. The orange plaids and stripes were perfect to make a fall owl craft. We would just have to cut around the skeletons and skulls:)

Cut out a large owl shape onto brown paper.

Using the patterned paper, cut out lots of patterned feathers and glue them onto the owl. Cut a large black strip of paper for the branch the owl is sitting on.

We used the cut the O and the top of the exclamation mark out of the word “Boo!” to make the eyes and the talons. I love how these simple owls turned out!

If your are in love with owls like I am then check out these adorable watercolor owls we made last year for Valentines Day.