Handmade Tea-Light Candle Holders

My 3-year-old made this candle holder. All the kids enjoy making these to give away as gifts. They make great gifts for grandparents, aunts, and uncles, etc. Great project idea to offer up to Dad for making mother's day gifts as well.

You'll need a small GLASS jar with an opening large enough to accommodate a tea-light candle. Dijon mustard jars, maraschino cherry jars, and babyfood jars are perfect.

If you've been saving the gift tissue from gifts, you are all set. If not, you can buy some if you need to. The more colors and patterns, the better. My child chose to stick with one pattern, and for his age of 3, I chose to keep the pieces more square for ease. Cut up your chosen tissue papers into irregular shapes, and store extra in a baggie for the next time. Each time makes for a unique gift. Multiple colors gives a special stained glass effect once the candle is inserted and lit.

You will also need glue. I have not investigated flammability of craft glues of any sort, but I know you can use what we do--regular ol' white school glue. You can thin it out a bit with water if you like as well. We don't. To apply the glue, you'll need a child-style paintbrush or foam craft brush. It's probably best to ensure minimal glue gets on the inside portion of your jar.

Paint one side of the jar and apply your tissue paper, and repeat all the way around. Overlapping is great. It's okay to go over the tissue paper with the glue to help flatten out any wrinkles. Imperfection for toddlers is sweet in my opinion.

It's obviously best to keep any tissue paper from overlapping into the mouth of the jar as well due to flammability. If your jar is tall enough, then you really won't need to worry about this due to the height of a tea-light candle. Do NOT use votive candles in your handmade candle holders. You may also embellish your handmade candle holder externally with a variety of items, foam shapes, sticky letters, glitter, etc. To add glitter, paint a layer of glue over the paper and sprinkle it on. Glitter should only be used for children who are able to handle their creation minimally, as the glitter will get on their hands. You don't want glitter to get into a youngster's eyes, so use with caution.

Allow to dry, and you're all set.

Art Projects with Colored O Cereal or Fruit Loops

This project is as easy as pie. Three-year-olds seem to enjoy smashing the colored O's especially. Use either a rolling pin or a large spoon. They also don't mind the sorting so much either. Great for learning to sort by color, color recognition, counting, etc. Use your imagination.

Using some of the recycled applesauce, pudding, or yogurt cups, place the color assortment surrounding the construction paper within easy reach of your toddler. As a side note, my 9-year-old daughter still enjoys getting creative with this project.

Also using some of the aforementioned containers, pour some glue into one and provide your child with tools to drizzle and paint the glue onto the paper. The tools can be anything from a Q-tip to sponge applicators to actual paint brushes. If you feel your child can handle squeezing an actual glue bottle, then let them have at it. Just be forewarned they tend to drizzle in one place.

You are only limited by your imagination. You can place drips of glue throughout, drizzle it on, or paint it on. You can strategically choose your colors and sprinkle them onto your picture or you can randomly sprinkle it on.

You then bend your paper to accumulate the loose crumbs into the center to pour into yet another container for a new wonderful rainbow mix.

Give them a brief demonstration and off they go.

SUPPLIES:

* Colored O Cereal sorted by color, 1/2 to 1 cup of each color.
* Baggies for crushing the cereal within.
* Large cooking spoon or rolling pin for crushing the cereal.
* Glue
* Containers such as empty applesauce, pudding, or yogurt cups to hold the glue and crushed cereal.
* Construction paper.

Reusable Household Containers for Kids Crafts

You will encounter many different containers ranging from single-serve applesauce cups to yogurt containers that can serve as craft accessory dispensers/holders.

Here I have pictured Italian ice cups that we use to hold tempera paint. Easily washable and reusable and amount to less paint waste. Also easily rinsed and recycled via the recycle bin if you so desire.



I have never once in the 11 years I've been a mother who has also worked in a preschool seen a kid haphazardly throw paint onto paper when supplied with a brush for each color of paint. Sure, a few times they've mixed their colors via the paintbrush just bumping into other colors, but the amount of paint needed for them to produce a piece of art is really very minimal; not at all the amount you pour into the standard kids' art paint cups with caps and covers. It doesn't hurt to toss out the mixed paint should it occur either.


Paint cups such as these are expensive and difficult to clean. The covers don't necessarily mean paint stores well for long periods of time either.

Single-serve applesauce cups are great with low sides for putting plain old glue into the bottom. Supply a paint brush for the toddlers and they have an easy and fuss-free way of applying glue to an art project. Nothing frustrates them more than handing them a glue stick and expecting it to stick a noodle onto a piece of paper - you need more substance for certain projects. Most toddlers have a difficult and messy time of trying to squeeze a glue bottle as well.

Before tossing out any container - give a quick thought as to what you MAY be able to use it for. Maybe it won't work out as you had planned, but chances are it will!

Organizing Activity Supplies

Over the years, it becomes painfully obvious how much stuff you accumulate as a parent. If you are like me, you don't necessarily like to throw out the 2 good paint-pens just because the other 8 are done for. As your brood grows, so does your arsenal of activity supplies that you use to stimulate your younger children and to encourage and fine-tune development of their fine-motor skills, etc., but let's not forget they are all great to have handy to survive summer vacations, sick days, snow days, rainy days, etc.

If your children attend public school, having all of these items handy will also prove beneficial throughout their primary-school career. You can receive project assignments that run the gamut, i.e. needing to bling out a cardboard cutout for various occasions, star-of-the-week projects, homework assignments, etc. Having two older children in elementary school when we added our third member to the equation.....let's just say there have been MANY times I thanked my lucky stars that I did not have to run around town in rain, sleet, or snow, or any combination of the 3, in search of the supplies we needed to meet the decorative requests/assignments, the same supplies that miraculously disappear from stock due to the sudden high demand leaving you high and dry by the way with a disappointed child who had a certain "vision."

Start stockpiling and saving good containers when the kids are young, even before you have the need for organizing supplies. Infant formula containers and Ovaltine and Nesquik containers are great for organizing activity/crafting/art supplies, and they are free after you, a neighbor, a relative, a coworker, or a friend, have consumed the product.

In my opinion, the somewhat oval-rectangular-shaped Nesquik containers are the best because you are able to utilize more space with them, but since I didn't buy as many of those, I used primarily the Ovaltine and formula containers, which still work well.

No matter which containers you decide to reuse for this purpose, you have a couple of options for labeling them. I picked out an easy-to-read font on the computer, picked an appropriate size, and printed the words of each item out on an 8-1/2" x 11" piece of computer paper. I then cut it down to size and hot-glued them onto the containers. You could alternatively choose to take pictures of the contents assigned to each container and print off those labeled pictures for children too young to read or learning to read. You could also use some really cute contact paper to completely encircle the containers, as the computer paper doesn't make it quite all the way around, and then hot glue pictures and/or labels onto that. I love you cutesie-pie folks, as I would love to do it myself, but I have to focus on fast and done!

A quick note, however, on containers I decided I did not like.....anything that is tapered, i.e. cookie-dough fundraiser containers, whipped cream containers, etc. (they are different sizes on top than bottom with bottom being smaller - this makes for wrapping your paper around it much trickier).

I basically started with an activity cupboard in the kitchen but, again, as the family grew, my activity arsenal grew, as did my domestic skills and kitchen appliance inventory, the activity cupboard has therefore bounced around a bit. I can't wait to finish the cupboards where the supplies reside now so I can share them with you in the future as well - got them completely free! -- but right now that white paint is really only primer.