Here is an easy but really pretty little something you can put together with your children to bring a little more Christmas sparkle into your home. You will need:
silver platter or other type of tray
assorted pillar candles of varying sizes
small red ornaments or jingle bells
assorted nuts with shells on
paintbrushes
glue
glitter
The “crafty” part involves jazzing up those nuts with some glitter to make them SPARKLE!! My kids were able to do this step on their own (we let Josiah have a paintbrush and a container of water to encourage him in the illusion that he was helping too. which in fact he was since he didn’t get into the glue and glitter and make a mess!!)
So…give each child a tiny paintbrush, a small cup of glue and a little bowl of glitter. Paint nuts with glue (you don’t necessarily need to cover the entire surface), roll or shake them in the glitter, and lay them on newspaper to dry.
When the nuts are ready, arrange your candles on your tray at varying intervals, and fill in the spaces between with the jingle bells and sparkle-y nuts. Light the candles and enjoy the happy looks on your children’s faces when they see how clever and crafty they are!!
That looks so beautiful and so much better than the hand-knitted scarves I tried to get my kids to do! Merry Christmas to you and your family!
I love all three pictures, but especially the bottom one with the natural light! It reminds me of a picture of Diane when she was not much older than Josiah, staring at a large candle my parents had made for Christmas. Of course it was in black & white, but the effect of the lighting and her closeness to the flame were similar.
What a fun project and it turned out beautifully!