Small hands at work.

I had the pleasure of spending time with a group of 8 and 9 year olds just over a week ago. At this time of the year my life is so full. Maybe a little too much some days. It's one market after the other leading up to Christmas. My days and weeks all blend in together. Some days I feel like I don't have time to come up for air.

So I made a special point of booking a day with Mr 8's class to work on a Christmas project. Thanks to my trusty Stampin Up products I was ready to go. (well as much as you can with 20+ children). I had a great project in mind but the question was, would it work!! Over the last month I've been working a lot
with glass jars. Bringing them back to life with a little crochet here, a bit of fabric there.
Why not make little Christmas trees I thought.

This would be a great Christmas project to try with the kids. Or why not do it yourself in a large scale. I made a beautiful one myself which I will share later at a later date. So what you will need is....

1) A small glass jar. ( I used baby food jars which are perfect for this project )

2) Sand.

3) A small stick.

4) Wool scraps. (yes this is the reason you have been saving them up)

5) A small piece of felt or fabric.

6) Twine and accessories to add to your tree.

So here we go.
First lets work on your stick. The children did an amazing job with this. Some took 5 mins some took a good 40 mins. It's just a case of winding your wool around the stick. When I did this project on a larger scale I used a number of colours to get an amazing effect. Let your imagination go wild on this one.

Once you feel your all wooled out why not add accessories to your tree. The children wrote tiny notes on there little butterflies. These are made by my amazing!!!! ( did I mention amazing ) Big shot machine from Stampin Up. Basically it's a cutting machine. No more cutting by hand people. The cutting pad choices are endless with this machine. Lay your paper ( or fabric!!! yes that's right fabric ) on your cutting pad and just roll it through the machine. It's so easy. I made about 100 of these little butterflies just like that.

Next we need some sand. I brought a bag from the landscapers down the road. Cheap as chips at under $10 for a very large bag. Fill your little jar almost to the top. Add your tree. Yes plant that puppy. And like you do with all planted items give it a good push down. I also added more sand around it. The best part is you will never have to water it!

Then it's time for your finishing touches. We got the good old glue gun out and attached some felt around the jar. Fabric would look just as good. You could always crochet a little warmer or wrap wool around it.

Finishing it off. We then went back to the amazing!!! Did I mention amazing (sorry it's an new toy) Big shot and cut a beautiful Doilie. A stamp was added to the front of the doile. Being a Christmas theme we added a Merry Christmas Stamp ( again from Stampin Up ) The idea's are endless on this one. A thank you, love you, Happy Birthday or just plan would be cute. We thread these Dolies with twine and tied them around the jar. Bingo there you have it. A mini Christmas tree.

The kids loved this project and I totally enjoyed spending time with my Mr 8 and his class. We even got his teacher involved in the project. And how cute do they look all lined up in the class.

To all the amazing students I really hoped you enjoyed working with me and I hope to do much more of this next year with both my boys classes ( look out teachers here I come!!! ) I've never been one for paper crafts but at the moment this is all I'm doing!!! My poor fabric is feeling left out. Lucky I can use my Big Shot for fabric as well. I'm not one to rave about products unless I really feel they are worth it. I'm very impressed with all my new Stampin Up goodies and hope to enjoy working on more projects over the holidays. I might even try to sneak my Big Shot in the car for our holiday (I'm sure my hubby won't notice!! )

All lined up in a row.