Kids' Craft!!!

I'm so excited today about the kid craft I thought up! I've been wanting to make an ornament with Little Girl's picture in it this year to help compensate for the fact that by this time in Big Girl's life, she had already been in school, making picture ornaments for a year or two, and there are already several pictures of her on our tree. There's one little picture of Little Girl from last year in her Sunday school class, and the picture they used isn't a very good one. She had taken off her headband, and her hair is a mess.

Last night I attended our church's Women's Christmas Dinner. It's a very special event every year, and it's always a fun night. Each table is adopted and decorated by a hostess, and each table is different. They're all beautiful in different ways. This year, the table I sat at was a hybrid of Christmas and Valentiney things, with the theme of John 3:16. There were all the figures from a white ceramic manger scene with red hearts on a black table cloth. It was very elegant. It inspired my ornament idea.

I got peel and stick glitter foam in 8.5/11 inch sheets. I used a heart-shaped cookie cutter to make red and silver hearts (I had to finish the cutting job with scissors, but it made enough of an impression to see where to cut). I cut a circle hole in the center of the red hearts (with my old Crative Memories circle cutters) for a picture of the girl(s). Then on the back of the silver heart I wrote with a black sharpee, "God loved us and sent His son. I John 4:10" (That's one of the verses they learn for Cubbies.) I made enough hearts for my girls and my neighbor's girls. She and I had been talking about doing a craft together with the girls.

After my girls watched me cutting out all these hears, they had ideas about other shapes they wanted to make for ornaments for grandparents (be surprised when you open your Christmas presents, please!).

It wasn't until after we cleaned up the mess we had made on the table that I found a paper for Big Girl's homework for this week. She has to make something that represents how our family celebrates the holiday. How perfect!! And it's going to hang in the hallway at school for a week. I'm so excited to put this ornament with the scripture on it in the public school. I really didn't set out to do that. It just worked out that way. Isn't it great when God does that?!

Thanks to a Paul Shanklin parody I heard on Rush yesterday, I have Abba's "Dancing Queen" in my head today. *Sigh* Sorry, folks.