Lovely Christmas Snowflake Craft

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Are you looking for a fun, last minute craft idea for Christmas? Well then check out these LOVELY Christmas snowflakes or stars as my daughter calls them. They look great hanging from the ceiling or you can make a smaller version and turn them into a beautiful, handmade ornament. They are easier to make than they look and my 6 and 7 year old were able to make them with very little help from me.

Materials we used:
-scissors
-stapler
-glue dots or tape
-6 pieces of paper or cardstock

Instructions:

1) Cut 6 square pieces of paper. If you want a large star to hang from the ceiling make your squares about 8 inches x 8 inches and for ornaments make your squares about 4 inches x 4 inches. Any type of paper will do, my kids choose some of my colorful scrapbook paper.

 2) Fold your square diagonally in half.

3) Then fold it in half again.

4) Hold your triangle with the short open fold towards you so the folded corner is away from you. To make it easier for the children I drew lines where they would need to cut

5) Cut 3-5 slits (depending on size you are making) from the un-folded short edge towards the folded edge. Do not cut all the way across leave about 1/8 - 1/4 of an inch.

6) When you open it up it should look like this.

7) Curl the center section together like this and affix with tape or glue dots.

8) Next flip the paper over and repeat in the opposite direction.

9)  Keep flipping the paper back and forth while repeating the steps above until it looks like this. Do this for the remaining 5 pieces of paper.

10) After you have completed all 6 pieces, join 6 of the ends together in the middle (to form a star shape) and attached them with a staple.

11) Finally use tape or a glue dot to secure the corners of each of the pieces together for added stability. 

I hope your family has as much fun as ours did making these!!!

Here are some of the other fun handmade ornaments we made for our Christmas tree and garland this year.

For more Christmas craft ideas be sure to check out my blogging friends 25 Days of Easy Christmas Crafts eBook.

Snuggle Up With A Good Christmas Book

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Reading books is one of our family's favorite pastimes. Throughout the year we read about 7-10 books a day on anything and everything!!! And on any given day when you walk into our home you will find about 100-150 library books sitting in a wagon waiting to have their pages turned.

Out of all the holidays to read books on though, Christmas is our favorite. Everyday in December we make sure we read at least one Christmas book (many times more) a day. We check out several Christmas books from the library and download lots of FREE Christmas Kindle eBooks too. And of course we have our own personal collection of Christmas books that we add one book to each year as a family tradition. Another tradition we started when we began homeschooling was learning about Christmas Around The World. The children really enjoy learning about the history of Christmas and how other cultures celebrate during this festive time of year.

Here are our top 10 favorite Christmas books:

1) The Christmas Tapestry

2) The Little Match Girl
3) Uncle Vovas Tree
4) The Sparkle Box
5) A Christmas Gift For Mama
6) The First Christmas Night

7) Legend of the Poinsetta
8) The Trees of the Dancing Goats
9) Room For A Little One
10) Legend of the Candy Cane

What is your family's favorite Christmas book?

Click here to read more "Christmas Book" posts from Schoolhouse Review Crew!

Be sure to browse through all of our other Top 10 Posts!

Linking up with: List Tuesday

Truth in the Tinsel - Week 4

I am so thankful that I saw a post on Facebook about the Truth in the Tinsel Advent. And that Amanda let gave me a FREE copy in return for a review. The kids learned so much about the REAL meaning of Christmas. We had a lot of fun doing the crafts. And we learned some amazing things about the Jesus, Bethlehem, Israel, temples, sheep, shepherds, wise men and angels. This is the first year we did an Advent and I am so happy we finally started this tradition. We will also be starting another tradition of making ALL of the ornaments for our tree. In addition to the Truth in the Tinsel ornaments we have also been making others like pompom wreaths and candy canes, hand print snowmen, Christmas trees, cotton ball snowmen, menorahs, crackers and cereal box angels. Our tree has never looked more beautiful.

Now we just have to convince Amanda that she needs to do an Easter e-book for everyone!

Here are our week 4 photos Day 18 - Day 24!

If you were unable to participate but still wanna see some amazing photos head over to the Truth in the Tinsel Facebook page.

If your a blogger and participating in Truth in the Tinsel please feel free to link up your final weeks post! If you not a blogger please leave a comment sharing your experience with Truth in the Tinsel!

Our SPECIAL Ornaments

I am linking up over at No Ordinary Moments and sharing a few of our SPECIAL Christmas ornaments and their stories with you.

This year we are making ALL of the ornaments for our large (well not really large) family tree. We are doing the Truth in the Tinsel Advent ornament crafts plus adding others like snowmen out of cotton balls, pompom wreaths and candy canes, Menorahs out of popsicle sticks and crackers out of toilet paper rolls and tissue paper. We are having a blast and I personally think this is the best our tree has ever looked.

 The kids have a small tree in their bedroom where all of our SPECIAL family ornaments are this year.

This is an ornament from my husbands childhood. I think it just adorable.

When we owned our home our next door neighbor would get each of the kids one of these ornaments every year. This one is my sons.

This ornament is to commemorate my husband and I's first Christmas as a married couple. The date is hard to read in the picture, it says 2000.

Each year my husband gets me a snowman. Sometimes its a stuffed snowman, sometimes a decoration and sometimes its and ornament (like these).

Each year we try to get the kids a Hallmark ornament. This is one of Gwyn's.

And this is one of Rowyn's Hallmark ornaments.

Thanks for stopping by I am glad I could share a little bit of our families traditions with you.