Three Quick Christmas Crafts

All of these are quick, easy & in progress.  They are varying degrees of kid friendly-- a great way to occupy little ones while parents are wrapping presents, cooking dinners or otherwise busy being parental~*

You'll need: Some pretty scrapbook paper, wooden spools, glue and/or tape, the tree pattern from my door bell post and (optional) ornament hooks.  Make both sizes of tree & create a whole forest for the table top! I"ll be giving ours to guests at our party as little take away presents.  

 Next year our Christmas theme is gonna be simple.  Literally.  Simple is our 2014 theme.  After this year, we need a tinsel break.  Anyway.  I'll definitely be revisiting this craft use plain white card stock for ornaments!

Puffball trees!  I picked up a few floral forms at the local craft store, and dug out my puff ball makers.  There are tons of tutorials out there for how to make your own puffball form out of cardboard etc.  I gotta say, we gotten our money's worth out of the store-bought version & if you are in to crafting I highly recommend picking some up from Amazon.  Its amazing how many things can benefit from a few puffballs lol.  Anyway.  This particular craft is still in progress-- I'll add finished product pics sometime soon, but I wanted to show you the in progress before Xmas!  Just set the kids to puffball making, then attach them to the form with straight pins-- easy peasy!

This last one is all over the place online.  Painting glass jars.  I love the look.  The trick is to A) Use Martha Stewart Multi-Surface paint B) clean the jars with rubbing alcohol or paint primer first and B) allow at least an hour between coats.  If you want them waterproof, you can put them in a cold oven and bake at 350 for 30 minutes.  I finished the top of the jars off with yarn and a glue gun-- they are deliberately not over the top holiday-ish because I intend to use them year round.  I have bunches of hoarded jars that will get a similar treatment once the holidays are over & I have the time!

So that's it!  

If you need me, I'll be at the kitchen table making puffballs!