Preschool Kids' Craft: Easy Fall Wreath

Twice recently, I've taken Jo to MOMS Club, and she's gotten to play with foam stickers. She has had the best time with them! Just yesterday, we were at a mom's house, and Jo stuck a bunch onto a paper plate. It gave me an idea...

I went out to Michael's and found a bucket of those stickers. They were $7.99 but on sale for 40% off for Columbus Day. They usually have 40% off coupons on their website. I also picked up a glue stick and some paper plates from the grocery store. Then, I took & printed some photos of the kids. I cut them down to the size of the center of our paper plates.

Here are our supplies:

Jo quickly jumped into the project and stuck leaves all over the center--not exactly a wreath. I wanted her to have fun, though, so I lightly glued some parchment paper on the center of the plates. I figured I could just peel off the parchment paper at the end to get any excess stickers off the center. Turns out, that step ended up being unnecessary for Oliver. He was very eager to do the project "right" and stuck all the stickers around the edge of his plate.

He really loved this project!

Here's Oliver with his finished wreath. He even glued the back of the picture himself using a glue stick.

Joanna discovered it was better to put the stickers on herself and the table. She decided putting stickers on the plate just wasn't cutting it anymore.

It looks like she's putting more stickers on the plate. Nope! She's pulling them off.

So, Oliver got busy making an extra wreath frame for Jo!

I stuck magnets on the back and wrote their names and ages on the front. Everything else was done by Oliver! Afterwards, he begged to make more, so we are about to get busy making one more. This was so cute and simple, and it's a huge hit! I have tons of stickers leftover, though, including some turkey stickers, so we're going to have to figure out what to do with all of them.

Pinterest Challenge Day 3: Cozy Fall Yarn Wreath

Technically, I started today's pin back in the fall, before I'd ever signed up for Pinterest. It's a very simple (but very cute) autumn wreath:

http://pinterest.com/pin/216383957066019050/

To get the full instructions for making it, just click on the picture from the link.

I'd decided to make it for a friend, so, back in October, I bought the wreath mold and yarn, and I wrapped the yarn around the mold. It was very easy, but it took a while. Then, I set it on the bookshelf, where it sat until yesterday.

Yesterday, I was sick with a miserable cold. Andrew had to go to work because his coworkers have been out sick. When he got there, though, and saw there was more staff than anticipated, he talked to his boss who (OMG, thank you) told him to go home. I laid on the couch for the better part of the day, dosing in and out of sleep, watching Create TV, drinking cup after cup of tea, and blowing my nose nonstop. I eventually decided I was well enough to take on a project. So, I took out the felt and needle and thread and followed the tutorial in the link above to make flowers for the wreath. The first few were actually fun, but then it got a little tedious. Actually, it only took an hour to make the flowers and attach them (I used a hot glue gun), but it wasn't very stimulating.

It felt good to finally finish the craft I set out to do in October. I don't know; there's something about making something and having the chance to be creative! So, even though it was a little tedious, I finished feeling accomplished.

My final product wasn't quite as nice as the one I linked (for one thing, I made my flowers too big), but I still think it looks nice. If I didn't already have a fall door hanger, I think I'd be proud to hang it on my door. Here's my finished wreath:

Please don't judge me for those messy counter tops, as I did no cleaning to speak of yesterday.

In all, I'm not sure it was worth the $20 to make, but it was nice to have a simple craft that doesn't take hours to figure out how to do. This might be something I do again in the future when my kids are old enough to enjoy making crafts. I'd probably do it with miniature wreath molds (which I'm sure are more cost effective) and let them have fun making yarn wreaths with other colors for Christmas time.