Wonderful Snowflakes on our Window

Today we were decorating the window in the kitchen, one of the activities still left in our Christmas countdown activity garland. Our themes were snowflakes and transparency of colours. The structure of a snowflake is nearly completely unique, because complex shapes emerge as the flake moves through differing temperature and humidity regimes. However, most snowflakes have a hexagonal symmetry. The vagueness and wonder in snowflake patterns, combined with the fact that there are certain rules to follow, make them an ideal craft project.

Paper snowflakes, plain and rainbow-coloured

We started by folding and cutting an A4 sheet of paper to make a square. Ju loves folding paper and experimenting with cutting through several thicknesses of paper at the moment, so he was very keen to do this.

Ju folds his paper

Because we used standard printing paper, it was actually really hard to cut through the many layers of paper once we had folded it as per this tutorial. Ju helped with the folding, but I had to do the cutting. We folded a square in two to make a triangle, then in two again; then we folded the two outer corners onto the middle line, and folded this in two. Then we cut the outside to give us a wedge. I recommend you look at the tutorial linked above, it's very clearly explained.
Once we had a wedge, I just cut into it to make patterns, and then we opened up the piece of paper. What wonder awaits when the insignificant wedge reveals itself into a beautifully symmetrical and delicate snowflake! And so, we made two paper snowflakes today.

Our two paper snowflakes, before and after unfolding

One of them went up on the window.

We had a little fun laminating the other snowflake, sandwiching it together with some coloured tissue paper. We cut the laminated shape out, and made a hole with hole punch to hang it up. Ju threaded some wool into the hole and we hung it on the window too.

Snowy soft snowflakes

For this, we took some glittery Christmas drape and cut out two large six-pointed snowflake shapes. Really simple, but it looks like fresh, soft, giant snow.

Drape snowflake on the window

Hot glue snowflakes

I have to thank We Lived Happily Ever After for this idea. My hot glue gun and I set to work on the window to create some six-pointed snowflakes by drawing them free-hand, while Ju and Lilo had their lunch (cunning trick to keep them away from the hot glue). 

I put a little bit of silver glitter just before the hot glue set to make them extra sparkly. Drawing the snowflakes wasn't hard, but I found mine were a little bit messier looking than I would have liked. I expect I should get better at it with some practice. As the evening is drawing in, these are looking even prettier as their three-dimensional opacity is reflecting the street lights glowing outside. 

Please note that this is not to be attempted if the weather is very cold, as the difference in temperature between the hot glue and the freezing outside surface of the window could cause the glass to crack. Thankfully we had no such worry. And ours is also a low temperature hot glue gun.

Hot glue gunning a snowflake on the window

My three hot glue snowflakes

We added to the snowflakes a few homemade stained glass effect window ornaments, including the Sharpie marker recycled stained window ornament we made on Day 8. We can now consider our kitchen window officially decorated. It will be lovely to look at our window from the street too. I wonder if Darling Him will notice when he gets home tonight.

Snowflake decorated window

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Five Ornament Craft Workshop and Three Different Christmas Bakes

Boy, have we had a crafty day today! This morning I had volunteered to lead a one hour Christmas craft workshop at the French play group that Ju and Lilo have started attending recently. This involved showing seven children aged between 18 months and 8 years old (as well as their parents and the teenage co-host) how to make a selection of Christmas ornaments.


As the age range was so wide, I chose to go for five different activities:
- Card collage, using snowflake motif hole punchers and various colours of cards and marker pens - perfect for making cards, present tags, table place markers...

Card collage and cut out

- Pipe cleaner ornaments - very simple tree decoration

Heart-shaped pipe cleaner ornament

- Coloured light tree ornament - made by punching out snowflake shapes in a tree shaped card, then glueing coloured tissue paper behind - a lovely decoration for a window

Really pretty snowflake shapes shining through with vibrant colours

- Stained glass effect window decoration using recycled transparent tub lids and Sharpie markers

Stained glass effect ornaments make the most of the winter light

- Little angels made from card, cotton wool and nylon tights - instructions for these are from Red Ted Art and can be found here

Cute little angel

Everybody tucked in to the activities, adults and older children tending go for the last two activity types (but not exclusively) and the younger children for the first two. For one hour, there was a whole lot of crafting going on at my friend's house, who was kindly hosting this workshop.

The children are very focused and creative

Most children had made at least two finished products by the end of the workshop.

Angels and a card collage and drawing

Ju made a 3D collage using green card paper he cut with his crinkly scissors and glue; he also made a pipe cleaner ornament for the tree, in the shape of an apple. Lilo mostly enjoyed climbing everywhere, watching my friend's goldfish swim and hugging giant teddy bears.

This afternoon, back at home, we made stained glass window honey cookies. This involves making cookies with the centre cut out, which is then filled with crushed boiled sweets.

Star shaped cookie with the centre cut out

Ju cuts a heart shaped cookie

Lilo enjoys sorting the boiled sweets into different colours

Cookies with the crushed boiled sweets, ready for their final baking to melt the centre

The crushed sweets melt in the final 4 minutes of cooking time, creating a stained glass window effect, which is very Christmassy indeed. These cookies would make fine ornaments as well, but we chose to make them to eat tomorrow with our friends as we are having a special Christmas gathering at home.

Stained glass window effect cookies all ready

However, as the honey cookie recipe was - to say the least - a bit of a nightmare (it didn't hold its shape during baking, possibly because the dough need refrigerating before baking), I won't give you a link to the recipe. If you want to re-create these, I would suggest using your best sugar cookie recipe, i.e. one that holds its shape. I had to rescue mine by re-cutting them with cookie cutters when they were almost cooked, before putting the crushed up boiled sweets to make the stained glass "window". I could really have done without the hassle. Still, they ended up very pretty and impressive as well.

On top of all this, I also made a white chocolate and cranberries panettone.

White chocolate and cranberries panettone

And as if I hadn't been busy enough, I also made these super cute Rudolph cupcakes using this recipe for chocolate cupcakes and my own design for Rudolph's head: brown and red fondant icing for the face and nose, cut-up mini marshmallows and black gel food colour for eyes, and plain chocolate antlers I piped on a silicone sheet using a cut-up plastic freezer bag and then left to set. I think the boys are going to LOVE those.

Guess who?

Kitchen still needs a good tidy, so I'm off to do that now!

Nativity Scene Box

We are not a religious family, but I think that it is important to educate children about the meaning of Christmas, and this is what today's activity was about. Whether one is a believer or not, the nativity is very much part of our culture. Making a nativity box together allowed us to discuss the story of the birth of Jesus. Ju clearly linked this to what he had learnt at nursery and sang "Away in a Manger" on a loop.

We started by making a starry sky scene using leftover glow-in-the-dark stars and blue tissue paper. The boys enjoyed sticking the stars on the paper.

Ju glues glow-in-the-dark stars on the sky

I prepared a cardboard box by cutting out three of the side flaps and gluing them onto the remaining long side flap to keep it upright. I also cut out a bit at the bottom of the opposite long side so the boys could play more easily with the nativity scene.

Our nativity scene set box

We glued the sky scene on the big vertical part.

A beautiful starry sky

 We glued gold tissue paper on the bottom of the box and made the paper cover the sides.

Ju is spreading glue onto the bottom of the box

 Then we made a shelter using the lid of an egg box and cut-up sections of the central tube from a cling film roll to make it. We stuck brown tissue paper on those and stuck the structure on the nativity scene box.

Rolling the pillars of the barn into tissue paper to cover them

The barn in its place in the nativity box

We then got some shredded paper and stuck it down in the shelter to make hay.

Ju puts the "hay" in the barn

Our small Playmobil Nativity Scene set came out and we used baby Jesus in his crib/manger, Joseph and Mary characters as well as the animals and the Christmas tree, to populate our nativity scene.

The little people and animals from the Playmobil nativity are placed in the scene

We also had a donkey from a farm animal set, which found his way into the barn. As soon as we find the cow, I'm sure she will go in too.

We are quite pleased with our nativity scene

Our nativity scene is now on top of our mantelpiece. We are looking forward to completing it with an angel, some shepherds and more sheep, and the three wise men when the time comes. But this will be for another crafting day.