Christmas Tree Bells

Please don't tell the Mother of the Year committee, but this is the first Christmas ornament I've made with my kids EVER.  This is Drew's fourth Christmas so I'm not sure how that happened...  Oops.  Ah well, I had already disqualified myself for MOTY sometime around January 1st.  And several thousand times over since then, I'm sure.

Here's what we used:

• green and brown construction paper
• embellishments:  we used star stickers, markers, and glitter and glue
• ribbon
• jingle bell
• clear contact paper and clear packing tape (optional)

We started with a half circle of green construction paper. I scalloped the curved edge for extra fanciness.

I set out markers, star stickers, glue, and glitter and told them to get to it.

Elaina is wearing her best crafting get-up.

When they were finished, I added a trunk and had them laminated.  I wish I'd have just covered them in clear contact paper because they are really thick and hard to bend. 

I managed to fold them into a cone shape and taped them with clear packing tape.

Then I found some jingle bells and tied them with ribbon and hot glued a loop at the top.

I hot glued this right to the top (inside) of each tree.

Drew was a tiny bit disappointed that they didn't make a jingling sound while they were hung on the tree unless we actually moved them, but he seems to have recovered now.

We made this to go along with the cutest little Christmas book, Rock-a-bye Christmas about Farmer Ben who just wants to get some sleep on Christmas Eve.  He can't sleep because his chicken is too noisy.  Farmer Ben decides he must be cold and brings him into the house, sings him a song, and puts him to sleep.  Then the pig starts to oink, and he repeats the process.  Next is the sheep and the cow.  The pages are cut so that as you turn each page, you see the animals move from the barn to the house.  Once all the animals are inside the house, Farmer Brown still can't sleep because they are snoring and snuffling so Farmer Ben ends up in the barn.  The last page shows all the animals having a party in the house while Farmer Ben sleeps peacefully, not hearing a thing.

Only 2 more days of The 12 Days of Christmas!  Head over to see what Jackie and her boys are reading today at Ready. Set. Read!

Linking to Censational Girl, Delicate Construction, Sugar & Spice, JDaniel4's Mom

Pragmatic Mom