Homemade Christmas Gifts - Little Kid Style! Part 1

I know we're done with Christmas and the New Year and my vacation, but I wanted to back up a little bit to before Christmas since that's when I started slacking off.

So, Christmas.  I wanted Bunny and Bug to be able to give gifts to each other and their older sisters this year to help pull them into the spirit of Christmas, but I didn't want to spend an arm and a leg doing it.  So I put on my thinking cap, scoured the internet and came across a handy dandy website called  Designer Mom. Apparently, every year, the Designer Mom's family has a tradition of the siblings giving homemade gifts to each other instead of purchasing gifts.  Not only is it a great idea, but it's a money saver, and as you know, in this economy, we pinch every penny we can!

Since Bug is only 3, finding creative homemade gifts that are appropriate for this age was a little difficult.  I finally decided on a glitter initials idea from the Designer Mom site. 

What you need:

• Wooden Initials (I found mine at Micheal's)
• Plain Elmer's White Glue
• Foam Paint Brush (also gotten at Micheal's)
• Glitter -various colors
• Plastic Bag/Newspapers

The glitter was the hardest for me to find.  I'm sure Micheal's had some, but I was looking around the holiday season and they were either out or I was just looking in all the wrong places.  Thankfully, I found some in our old arts tubs from when GG and LW were little. 

After laying down a plastic bag (I didn't have any newspaper) I ran a bead of glue along the back of the wooden initial then I sat with Bug as he diligently got glue everywhere painted the glue.  I went over his glue job to spread it out and make sure it was all over evenly. 

Then the fun part.  I handed him a little container of glue and let him sprinkle away.  It was hard for him at first to get the glitter to come out and it certainly didn't come out evenly, so be prepared for a mess, but  man did he have fun.  He shook and shook and shook some more until there was glitter all over the first wooden initial. 

All up, I don't think it took more than 30-45 minutes to make all three glitter initials - time includes set up and clean up.  He had a lot of fun, and he was SO happy to have gifts under the tree that HE made himself. 

When his sister's opened their gifts from him he was squealing so loud about how he made them.  He was so proud!  And it was a nice little gift his sister's could really enjoy.

Seriously.. Thoughts?