Holiday shopping doesn’t have to be stressful. I’ve chosen my favorite items from each of our fabulous Festive Family Holiday Gift Guide Giveaway sponsors to help you knock out your shopping quickly and easily, and hopefully on budget. To read more about each brand, check out the full Gift Guide event here. At the bottom of this post you’ll find not only our HUGE $1800+ giveaway to win prizes from each of these sponsors, but also Gifts for the Season posts from the Festive Family bloggers.
Around our house, Christmas is a time for crafting. I’ve had my fair share of craft fails so I thought I’d share 15 easy Christmas crafts that are really and truly doable. I’ve made several of the ones on this list and plan to do a few more this year. All of these projects are frugal and can be done while you watch a favorite Christmas movie. Pick a project, turn on Elf, and get to crafting. Don’t forget to check out the other Creative Christmas posts from the Festive Family bloggers at the bottom of this post, and enter our HUGE Holiday Gift Guide Giveaway.
Holiday shopping for kids can be a daunting task. With millions of options, how do you find the best gift for your child that they will love and treasure? I’ve teamed up with a group of fabulous Kid Blogger Network folks to bring you real reviews of items from your kid’s wishlist. Peg and Plum is an Etsy shop focused on making high quality peg dolls perfect for imaginative play. Nativity sets for Christmas, Thanksgiving sets for the kids’ table, wedding and birthday cake toppers, custom sets made to look like your family, favorite characters, community helpers, and just about any type of peg doll you can imagine are available at Peg and Plum. Read on to find out what we thought about the peg dolls and enter to win a set of your own.
In the rush to Christmas, sometimes the Thanksgiving holiday gets overlooked. I love Thanksgiving, and think it is about so much more than stuffing our bellies and shopping for Black Friday deals. Teaching kids about gratitude, and practicing an attitude of thankfulness ourselves is key to living a life of peace and contentment. The more thankful I am for my life, the better I am at living it. For the second year in a row we’ve created a very simple Thankful Tree for the month of November to help us focus on gratitude. Read on to find out how we make it as well as to find ideas for Thankful Traditions from the other Festive Family bloggers. Don’t forget to enter the big holiday gift guide giveaway at the end of this post.
If a child lives in your home, the chances are good you have a collection of their art stashed in an ever growing pile. My kids love to color and paint and create, and their masterpieces start to really add up. I love their little creations, but I’m not trying to end up on Hoarders. You just can’t keep everything, right? I came up with a way to keep pieces of their paintings without hoarding and creating something lovely and decorative at the same time. I shared a garland we made for the Bear’s room here, and this time we decided to make a DIY holiday garland and love how it turned out. Read on to find out how to make one of your own.
You’ll need a collection of drawings or paintings. This project works best with toddler and preschool art because it is typically a little more “abstract”. If letting your kids paint intimidates you, read about how we finger paint without stress here.
Materials:
or other shape punch
Strategically punch out shapes from the paintings. You may have to cut pieces to get the look you want. I try to get a good mix of colors. After you get a pile punched, line them out how you want them to hang. I did mine about 4 inches apart. This will help you measure the string you need. I always leave a little extra when i cut the string in case I need more. Punch holes in the shapes and then let your child string them on your garland. This is great fine motor skill practice. If your child is older they can help with the punching as well.
Let them thread all of the shapes on to the string. We had a lot of fun with it. They were so excited to be making something with their artwork.
After the kids were done stringing the shapes on to the twine, I went back and knotted each piece in to place. Now it is ready to hang and decorate our home for Christmas.
Don’t forget to visit our Festive Family Holiday Gift Guide & Giveaway for prizes and more holiday fun. Read more about how we simplify the holiday season here. How do you make the holidays special for your kids?
Follow Becca Eby ~ Bare Feet on the Dashboard’s board Festive Family Holiday on Pinterest.
Thanksgiving, Christmas, Hanakkuh, Kwanzaa, Pancha Ganapati, New Year’s Eve… whatever you are celebrating during the November and December holiday season it is a busy time that can be taken over by stress, social engagements, financial worry, and anxiety. This year I want to have a festive family holiday full of joy without stress. I’m sharing 5 ways we can all simplify the holiday season so we can focus on the joy and share it with others. I’ve teamed up with an amazing group of bloggers from around the world for our Festive Family Holiday Hop and Gift Guide Giveaway. At the bottom of this post you’ll find a HUGE giveaway with 4 prize packages to take care of everyone on your shopping list plus links to find out how the other bloggers are sharing the joy of the season.
The Bear and I love a good project. This little Easter Egg Garland was a really fun one to create with him, and gave him lots of great fine motor skill practice. Stringing objects is part of his upcoming skills check with our pediatrician’s ages and stages questionnaire, so we’ve been working on it together. I thought making an egg garland would be great practice and give us a festive decoration for our mantle at the same time. He is so proud of his creation, as you can see above. His two year old attention span couldn’t handle making the whole thing in one day, so we worked on it bit by bit over several days.
