Tiny cotton batting strawberries for the feather tree.
Miniature cotton batting strawberries are the easiest ornaments one can make using unraveled cotton balls and a bit of glue and paint. These ornaments look lovely on any tree, not just feather trees and they can be made much larger if you prefer.
Supply List:
cotton balls
red and green acrylic paints
translucent glitter
green felt or paper for leaves
thin wire
black permanent marker
Step-by-Step Instructions:
First unravel several cotton balls.
Dab onto the wire a small bit of cotton and glue. Roll the wire between your palms until it is covered.
Roll a tight tiny ball of cotton and glue and then wrap the wire around this twisting one end around itself and forming the opposite end into a hook.
Take another piece of cotton and roll it again between the palms of your hands along with a squeeze of white school glue. Do not compress the cotton.
Gently attach this berry to the end of the wire with the small ball using more glue and cotton.
Add more layers of cotton and glue until you have formed the fruit into the size and shape that you prefer. Let it dry.
Paint the berry bright red at the top with acrylics and gradually water down the red paint in areas with lighter pigment. (see photo above)
Cut tiny green petals from paper or felt and glue these around the stem.
Paint the stem green.
Add tiny black dots for seeds using a permanent felt ink marker.
Smear on the glue gently wear you would like glitter.
Sprinkle on the glitter and hang the strawberry on the tree to display and dry.
I've made this crossword puzzle for Christmas based upon clues found in the lines of a poem, "A Letter to Santa." The poem has sixteen lines and there is one clue per line given. It helps to read the poem and know that the puzzle should be solved within the context of the lines of the poem. The additional clue for line "8" is edible, I felt that it was necessary for the word to be solved. Line "8" of the poem didn't quite fit in with the poem; I just thought about the only mittens being shaped like something a child would always choose...
19 presents must be found for 19 people under one roof!
The gift tags were left off of the packages by accident! Help Santa figure out who gets what gift by unscrambling the letters that will identify each gift. Every person receiving a gift has also a clue included with their name that will help you figure out their present. If the game is too easy, time it so that the first person to complete the game in the least amount of time wins a prize.
"What a perfect wife she would make for me!" he thought. "But she might be too grand. She's used to a Castle. It would be hard to ask her to move into a box with me and my twenty-four brothers. Still I wish I could get to know her." tin soldier (from our families book about The Steadfast Tin Soldier illustrated by Fred Marcellino)
Left the front view of my cardboard castle diorama. Right, the backside.
This is a different version of the Steadfast Tin Soldier.
To make a diorama similar to this one you will need to gather the following supplies. The project has many details and will take some older students (4th and 5th graders) more than one day to complete.
Supply List: on the right include a printable of ballerina.
a shoe box lid
brown paper bags
a fine tip black permanent marker
Mod Podge
green paper
a metallic wrapping paper
kitchen foil
several cotton balls
white school glue
masking tape
10 or 11 acorn caps
one tooth-pick
green glitter
printable of the ballerina (just right) and the tin soldiers (below)
extra white paper for the swans
one cup cake paper cup liner for skirt
ribbon (3-4 inches)
colored pencils,
two long narrow boxes the exact same size for the towers of the castle
a jewel for the dancer's skirt.
both flimsy and heavy scrap cardboard
newsprint
To make the figures for this diorama, print the patterns given below. Cut-out the figures and use colored pencils to color in the ballerina's arm, leg and face. Color all of the tin soldiers costume using a brilliant red and navy blue. Glue on the ruffled part of a cupcake liner to the dancer's waist to create a tulle skirt and finish off her costume with a silk ribbon bow and a small jewel bead. Color her tiara of flowers pink or blue. You may also wish to add details like a feather to the cap of the tin soldier. Mount both of the figures on flimsy cardboard, like the kind used to make cereal boxes with. You can further craft a small stand for the tin soldier and also glue a toothpick to the bottom of the ballerina's toe. About half of the toothpick many be pasted to the backside of her leg; let the other half stick out from the tip of her pointing toe. This will be poked inside the cardboard steps and secured with hot glue when the time comes to mount her inside the diorama.
Use a hot glue gun to assemble the acorn "trees." squeeze the glue inside the caps and stack these on top of each other until you have trees the height you prefer. Smear a bit of white glue onto the surfaces of these nut-cap trees and sprinkle on as much green glitter as you like.
Step-by-Step Instructions for The Castle:
To make the castle for this diorama, you will need to cut a backing to secure the two towers onto each end.
Then using masking tape, firmly wrap and glue this wall structure to the inverted side of a shoe box lid.
Cut and fold a cardboard roof to bend and then sandwich between the towers.
Cover the towers with brown wrapping paper and white school glue.
Cover the roof between the two with green paper.
Make sure that the space between the towers and beneath the roof is large enough to include the ballerina inside the gap.
Cover this gap's back wall and steps with decorative Christmas wrap.
Hot glue and mount the paper dancer by poking her toothpick tipped slipper inside the cardboard steps.
Mount the aluminum foil covered lake in front at the foot of the steps.
Hot glue acorn stacked trees around the lake.
Glue in the swans and cover the surfaces with cotton batting to make the foreground look as though it is covered with snow.
Now use the black permanent marker with a fine tip to draw on bricks or stones of the castle.
Mod Podge the castle structure.
Glue on additional snow around the towers and on the roof if you like.
The details of the mirrored lake where the wax swans swam. Except, our swans are made of paper.
In order to make the lake for the swans, cut a piece of cardboard in the shape you would like for the frozen pond; cover this with white school glue and then wrap the little mirrored lake with kitchen tin foil. Mount this on the bottom of the diorama's inverted, shoe-box lid just in front of the steps. Use the step-by-step instructions below to draw your swans on the extra white paper with a maker. Cut these swans out but include a small tab at the bottom of each swan. Fold this tab backwards (out of sight) and dab it with glue. Press the sticky tab firmly in place on top of the foil lake where ever you would like the swans to be swimming.
How to draw a swan Step-by-Step. For your pond.
The steadfast tin soldier with his brothers. Printable by kathy grimm for students and play only. Click to download the largest available size.
Baby Jesus born to be The King of Heaven and Earth.
The Christ Child in the manger is the last picture in the Christmas crib series. Color the picture, paste it on cardboard and cut it out along with the star that shines above the manger scene.
On the floor are some of the gifts which the characters in the nativity have brought to Him. Pure, clean water, a treasure in a dry land, is in a rude jug. That and the sheaf of grain are the gifts of the poor shepherds. Beside these stand caskets of incense and below is a tray of gold, the gifts of the Wise Men.
Fold the center part forward, the outer ends of the base backwards so that picture will stand.
The star cut-out should also be colored brightly first, then hung above the manger scene.
"Mary, the mother. of the infant Jesus, is shown in the fifth picture to be used in making a Christmas Crib.
Color the figure, paste it on cardboard and cut it out. Because of many of the great painters of the past have painted this scene, we usually think of Mary wearing a cloak of rich deep blue over a red gown. But this is a artistic choice. Mary probably dressed in natural earth colors common to her people at the time. In either case, you may color her robes however you prefer."
This is Joseph, the fourth figure for your Christmas crib, or creche. He was a humble man, a carpenter, (actually a stone mason) so his clothing is plain.
Color the picture, paste it on cardboard and cut it out. He wears a dark mantle over a gray robe. But his sash is colorful, you could make it red or green. And the straw peeping out from under his robe is yellow.
The center of the base folds forward, the outer ends fold back to make it stand. Add this picture to the three figures you have already saved.
