The Rockets Red Glare.

Today Brennan and I had fun putting together a fun project for our Summer decor.

Paper Rockets!


First we started with some empty paper rolls.


And some patriotic colored paper and card stock. See it there behind the photobombing 5-year-old?


Then I just cut the paper to fit the rolls and let Brennan have at it with some modge podge.


Ta Da!


To make the caps for the rockets, I cut circles out of the paper. I just traced a cup to get the shape.


Cut a slit halfway through the circle and shape and glue like so.


Crafting is always better with some good music.


Brennan testing out the zoomability of our rockets. As you can see, after the modge podge-ing I lost him to the water sprinklers. He was on a cookie break.


Hot glue on some sticks. I just used some skewers. Oh, and I forgot to mention, I glued on some ribbon for the sparks.


"3-2-1 Blast off! Wow, Mom, they zoom even better with the sticks!"


And there you have it, our fun Fourth of July centerpiece! Does anybody else get the feeling that these rockets will spend more time out of the pitcher than in it? :)

Here is the link to this picture on pinterest that was the inspiration for our rockets.

A Little Bit o' Christmas

Usually every year by this time in December, my house is all decked, my presents are all wrapped, and we are fully immersed in fun Christmas crafts, cookie making, and holiday outings.

This year we are doing everything low key. Make that really low key. Of course, that is not by choice, just the circumstances we are in at the moment; I'm not going all bah humbuggy on you.


Ho, ho, ho! It's Santa Brennan.

As of today, I have no wrapping done. Actually, I don't even have any wrapping paper, and some of my need-to-wrap gifts won't even get here until after Christmas. We haven't done any cookie baking yet. I do plan on doing that soon. (The commissary here has several gluten-free flour options. Yay!) Brennan has decided Santa needs chocolate chip cookies this year. Sounds good to me. :)

As for all the other trimmings, I don't have any Christmas-y smelling candles, or a mantel to hang our stockings, or even a Christmas tree. But we have had a fun time making a couple craft projects to make it a little festive around here.


On our daily outings to the playground, Brennan has been collecting pinecones.


I told you it wouldn't take long to use my new glitter!




We've also made some paper chains.


Easy pack Christmas decor. :)


And we made a felt banner.


Banner making.

I was also able to mail over a couple of our favorites.


Our Christmas advent tree.


The snow globes we made last year, and our tiny first Christmas tree.


Brennan's nativity...and Spider-man gloves, and Matchbox cars, and Transformers. :)

And as is our tradition, our Christmas ornaments for this year.


Our family ornament. Fitting for all the National Park exploring we did this year. We found this leaf at Bryce Canyon National Park.


Brennan's ornament. Since we are now international, Santa on a globe was perfect for this year. Brennan has had concerns that Santa won't find him. I think the little man will be getting his yearly email from Santa any day now. :)

He will not, however, be getting the skateboard that he put on his Christmas list. I don't think my Mommy nerves are up for that yet. Yikes.

He's Wishin' For a Pencil Thin Moustache

Or at least he's having fun pretending with a clay one.  We finally opened up the box of clay that was in the goody bag Brennan got for winning the Christmas coloring contest.













I love when he cracks himself up. : )
Obviously moustaches were the big hit of the evening, but we also made some trees.



And some owls.



Fun.

A Last Minute Christmas Project

So all over the internet this month, (well, the parts of the internet I frequent anyway) I have been seeing (and loving) these waterless snowglobes that people have been making inspired by some at Anthropologie.


{image source: anthopologie}

How cute and easy!  All along I had planned on waiting and recreating these next year...

...but then as I was switching over laundry this morning, Brennan being his normal curious self decided to open up a box that was stashed in the corner.

And lo and behold, a bunch of these were in there. (Obviously, long forgotten about by me.  I once upon a time had intentions to actually can something with them. Ahem.)



I took that as a sign. : )  Let's make some snowglobes!

Time to gather some supplies.  We didn't put up our Christmas village this year, so I dug out the box of village trees and the fake snow.  Brennan wasted no time in doing some forest management.



I also raided Brennan's stash of plastic animals to see if any of them could become part of our display, but none of the ones I found seemed appropriate to be joyously frolicking in the wintery forest.



It actually kind of looked like Lassie and John Boy had rounded up some Christmas dinner candidates. ha.  I'll stick with the trees.

After I had all my goods in line, I selected a variety of trees and hot glued them inside the lids.



Next I enlisted my little helper to funnel some snow into the jars.



We had to use a bamboo skewer to make the snow go down.



Kudos to me for realizing how much of a mess this would be and using a tray to catch the extra. : )



Our jars had a little too much snow.  The little trees look like they were buried in a blizzard.  Of course I kept them that way. :)  But if you do this, just use a little, especially if your jars are small like ours.

Time for a test shake.



Add the rest of the forest.



And the fences Brennan insisted on. (Because they're friends.)



Ta-da!  You have a magical and  wintery centerpiece in less that 20 minutes.