# 16 Crafty Gifts

Mother's Day gift making was a lot easier to do. We would make flower pen bouquets and

put them in a cup or glass holder.  The flower was made from tissue paper, twisted and held 

on to the pen with green sticky craft tape. Another project we made , was candles.  One 

candle I like to make was the cheese with a little plastic mouse in it.  We used old broken

crayons to tint the color of the melting wax in an old saucepan. Using an empty clean milk

carton  cut down to one third it's size, we put a small hole in the bottom with scissors,

threaded a wick through it and taped it to the bottom of the carton. We made the wick stick

straight up by tying the wick to a pencil and balanced it horizontally on the open carton.

Next we filled the carton with various sizes of ice and poured the warm wax over the ice.

The ice melted, the wax hardened and the carton was removed from the candle. The kids

put the mouse inside one of the holes.  It was always a hit with the Moms'. Glass painting

and ivory soap carvings were also favorites as well as any clay object their student made.

We made sock puppets, ginger bread houses and popsicle containers as well as string art

projects with hammers, nails and wool or string.  We used fun fur, colored  cotton balls,

googly eyes and colored pipe cleaners to make spiders, frogs or any animals the kids liked.

We made center pieces out of pine cones and leaves and spray painted them for

Thanksgiving center pieces with a candle in the middle. Another fun spray painting

activity was  to cover old shoes, runners, boots or high heels with macaroni shapes glued to

them and spray them gold, silver or red. Then fill with things like Christmas items such as

ornaments, garland or tinsel.  One principal told me I could not do crafts in the school

anymore , so my students and I did it outside in the snow. The snow was very colorful

when we were done. We had some very pretty snow angels that lasted til the snow melted.

We always made paper mache masks out of paper bags, balloons or cereal boxes for

 Hallowe'en. All that was needed was flour, water and lots of newspaper. We also used

several materials to complete the masks: paint, string, wool, fun fur, felt, pipe cleaners, old

hair nets, ribbon, broken jewelry and cotton balls. Some of my poor students thought it was

a good idea to take off shoes and socks. They accidently spilled the three pails of mache

goop and started slipping and sliding in it. They looked so funny. I wish I had photos. 

What a mess!!  That same principal told me I could never do that project again.

He was no fun.    I changed schools. LOL

Faith always !!

 





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