Recent Christmas Crafts for Moms and Kids

This fall I took on two new roles.  First, I became the creative activities leader for our new MOPS group at our church.  Second, my husband and I have been filling in to teach Sunday School to five-year-olds.   I'm still learning and working on how to get the timing right when it comes to preparing and executing crafts for a group.  But turning ideas into a finished product remains a fun and inspiring pursuit.

Here are some of the projects we've done so far:

`Seven Bean Soup and Gingerbread Cookie Mixes
 (for MOPS moms)

We ate our soup last week, so I just have the cookie mix left to show.  The soup recipe was adapted from this Lucky Bean Soup recipe from Taste of Home.  I halved a gingerbread cookie recipe from Martha Stewart's website.  We put the dry ingredients in plastic bags, then put that in paper sacks, and tied it up with a ribbon.  Moms then had the option of giving the mixes as a gift to someone else, or keeping theirs to make with their family.

When it's time to make the cookies, one has to add butter and molasses. One of the moms said that the cookie dough turned out well, save needing a bit of extra butter.    Soon I hope my kids and I can try making some gingerbread cookies of our own!

Paper Sleighs
(for MOPS moms)

The sleigh pattern came from About.com, though I made a few modifications.  Below are the steps we followed.

WINTER SLEIGH ASSEMBLY

1.  Trace and cut out 2 sides and bottom of sleigh.

2.  Decorate edges of sides with metallic marker.

3.  Fold tabs of sleigh bottom inward.  Curve to follow the shape of sleigh.

4.  Carefully glue tabs to insides of sleigh, holding until mostly dry.

5.  Optional: Add seating.

6.  Decorate with ribbon and fill with any of the following: nuts, small gingerbread people, photo cutouts of kids in winter attire, tea etc.

 Christmas Birth Announcements
(for 5-year-olds to make)

My husband and I are delighted to be using the Children Desiring God kindergarten curriculum with the kids in our class on Sundays.  The idea to make a birth announcement for Jesus was part of last week's lesson plan.  Exactly how to create it was up to me.   I needed more prep time than I allowed to make my sample announcement, but this was the eventual result:

I'm sharing this at Try New Adventures Thursday and A Handmade Christmas.