Christmas Crafts in the Library

I was asked if I could have the students make ornaments to sell at the Christmas program as a fundraiser.  This was a little intimidating at first, because it's hard to get a child-produced ornament with sale worthy quality.  But I'm pretty happy with how things turned out.  

I dug into my grandmother's button box for one of the options.  

With the button snowflakes, I made the first one, then I had Katie make one, to see if any issues cropped up before I tried it in the library with small children.  I learned that a grown up should be in charge of the glue.  I pre-glued the sticks using E6000 and then we used white glue for the buttons.  

These were made by first and second graders, and I think they came out great!  

This was my prototype (minus the handle, which I added with silver Sharpie later) bubblegum machine.  I used clear ornaments from JoAnn's, disposable shot glasses for the base, itty bitty pompoms for the "gum," and silver vinyl from my Crikey supply stash for the "flap."  

The 3rd, 4th, and 5th grade students did a great job on their gumball machines!  

Hannah and her friend helped me make snowman faces on beads and I set up trays for the kindergarteners to be able to assemble snowman friends.  

Snow peeps are made from white beads, hat is made from a black oblong bead and a button, the ornament is strung on rattail cord, and the scarf is ribbon I had in the sewing room.  

As you can see, I ran out of red ribbon, so a couple of the snowmen have green scarves.  These came out pretty cute, too!  

My prototype for the 6th grade class.

And their finished works of art.  

This is a non-ornament, not for sale, craft I did with my 3rd-5th grade classes.  I saw a post where someone had their students weave with burlap ribbon and thought that would make a good fine motor activity.  I wandered the ribbon aisle at Hobby Lobby, looking for "just right" ribbon.  This ribbon is actually wired, so I had to pull the wires out before turning over to the kids.  Pulling the wires out of glittery ribbon dislodges a fair amount of glitter.  My desk sparkles.  Anyway, yarn & ribbon from Hobby Lobby; kid friendly needles from Amazon.  I gave them a lot of freedom with this one, and had pretty mixed results.  I think some of the kids would have benefitted from more guidance.  I let them make whatever design they wanted, and some of them ended up a tangled mess.  My mom gave me some cardstock she wasn't going to use, and I'm thinking I might make lacing cards and laminate them and give another try to "needlework" later in the school year.  

All in all, the ornament thing went better than I expected, and I'm really glad.  I was pretty nervous when I was first asked to help kids create something people would want to pay for.