Hanukkah Craft: Tiny Little Neighborhood

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Published 12.26.2008 | Permanent Link | Comments (4)

Make Your Own Happy Little Hanukkah Village!
By Brenda Ponnay

I should start this post by saying that I am not Jewish nor is this little Hanukkah craft idea kosher. It's just something I came up with that I thought would be fun. I don't mean to be disrespectful to the holiday or to those who celebrate it. But I do hope you enjoy this post. Take it for what it is: just something fun to do with your kids. Shalom!

Ever since I spied my first paper Christmas village, I've been itching to create my own. I wanted to make something really small though, because we don't have a fireplace mantel that I can spread a miniature village out all over. I thought about making one for the coffee table in our living room but that area is often used for three-year-old break dancing sessions, so that idea was out. Then I spied our narrow window sill---the perfect spot for a very narrow village! It would be showcased by the weather outside and at night it would light up the window so cheerily!

When Isabel asked me if I could come up with something crafty for Hanukkah, I was sort of stumped. I really wanted to do my little paper village but it wasn't about Hanukkah at all...or was it? I realized my village idea would work perfectly for a little Jewish neighborhood. Why not? I have so many fond memories of staying in the Marais District in Paris and all the buildings there were very narrow, just like raisin boxes! And that was when the idea of a raisin-box village was born!

All you need are ten raisin boxes, some paint, tissue paper, a long narrow piece of cardboard and these really nifty little battery operated light bulbs. I know that last item is probably not something you have on hand but I found them at a party store in a pack of twelve.

They were in the wedding supply aisle next to the disposable cameras and paper cups, but that's just my party store. If you can't find them I'm sure you could use one of those mini-strings of Christmas lights. I liked the individual light bulbs though, because they worked with my Hanukkah story, which I will get to later.

After I arranged my boxes so that there were eight small buildings and one tall building in the middle, making nine total, I set about cutting the windows with a very sharp X-Acto(TM) knife. To create that taller box I cut off about a quarter of a spare raisin box off and just glued the "add-on" to the bottom of the ninth box with a glue gun to make it taller. Nothing fancy.

At first I cut the windows from the boxes as they were. But I wasn't happy with how imperfect the squares were as I punched through the empty box with my knife. To remedy that, I carefully disassembled each box by cutting along the seam on the side that was glued. After the boxes were opened flat, I did a much better job cutting out my windows on my self-healing cutting mat (a cutting board will work too).

It was tough going on some of the boxes, I'll admit. This craft might be best suited to kids who have the patience for making model airplanes, or maybe this would be a fun project for those architect dads and moms to supervise. Of course you don't really have to cut out the windows but I think the light showing through is the best part so I say, tough it out and cut those windows out.

After all the windows were cut, I glued the boxes back together with a glue gun. Then I painted them with regular acrylic paint. They needed two coats to cover the bright raisin box printing. For the first coat I used white as a primer and for the second I alternated between two shades of pastel blue, to fit my wintry scene.

When the paint was dry I added small pieces of yellow tissue paper to the inside of each box with a tiny smudge of glue to hold them in place.

The next part I botched up pretty bad I deliberately did the wrong way just to give you an example of how not to do it. I assembled all the buildings in a line on my piece of cardboard first, and then painted the detail in later. I don't recommend doing it this way. I think it would be much easier to paint each building, detail and all, separately. Then when they are dry, assemble them in a line. However you do it doesn't really matter. You might not even want to add details like windows in a deli or address numbers or awnings and shutters. Part of me wishes that I had left my little village plain so it looked more like Gotham City from a distance. But the charm of a little Jewish neighborhood is fun too.

You'll have to forgive my details as most of them I came up with by doing a quick internet image search for "Jewish Neighborhoods." It would really cool if my street resembled an actual avenue in New York City or boulevard in Paris but it's more by way of my imagination. (If you can do a better job please send me your photos or link them here. That would really make my day!)

Of course no tiny holiday village is complete without glitter so we added glitter. My toddler assistant was quite helpful for this portion of the project. She let it snow and snow and snow. Some cotton balls would work well here too.

Then we added props and took pictures.

You've probably noticed by now that the number of buildings in this little village is intentional. It's sort of my modernistic nod to the hanukiyot, a hanukkah menorah. The one tall building is the Shamash, the helper candle. The eight smaller buildings are the candles that are lit on the eight days of Hanukkah to represent the miracle of one day's worth of oil lasting for eight days.

As I added the electric bulbs and thought about the miracle of Hanukkah, it reminded me of one time when I was a kid and my mom forgot to pay the electric bill. We got the blue notice and the green notice and then the pink notice and we knew the lights would go out. But they didn't. They stayed on. It was sort of a miracle. I don't remember how many days the lights stayed on before my mom ended up paying the bill but it might have been eight. Maybe the little people in this village didn't pay their electricity bill either and their lights stayed on. Or maybe it's just a little village to make your windowsill cheery. Or you can use it when you're playing Godzilla...

Either way I hope you have as much fun making this as I did!

Track Santa!

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Published 12.24.2008 | Permanent Link | Comments (0)

We remember how as children it seemed like Christmas Eve was the longest day of the year. If you can track every movement of a Fedex package (guess what I'm doing today), then why couldn't Santa's annual voyage would be a tracked too?

Read about NORAD tracking Santa for the past 50 years. But, now tracking Santa is even easier. Thank you, internet. You are awesome.

And, why yes you can!

Using NORAD's special Track Santa site you can get several views of the big guy making his way across the world. See how he's been through Asia & Australia already and is approaching Africa as of this writing. Google Earth makes it easy to just click on where Santa is to learn about that territory. There are even YouTube videos. Huzzah!

Just visit Norad Tracks Santa and start watching obsessively. Your kids will think it's a hoot knowing that even Santa cannot escape the Google satellite (teachable moment here? hrmm).

As for me, I'll go back to alternating between tracking Santa and my Fedex package (ie, present for husband).

Merry Christmas to all!

Snow-Globe Soap

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Published 12.19.2008 | Permanent Link | Comments (54)

Stuff their stockings with something they can wash their hands with!
By Brenda Ponnay

What's cuter than a button, small enough to fit in a stocking, won't rot your teeth and leaves you squeaky clean? A mini snow-globe soap, of course! Here's a super-fun craft you can whip up in an afternoon. It's quick, it's easy and it hardly makes any mess! I'd say it's just about as easy as making a batch of homemade popsicles except you get to melt things in the microwave.

First you'll need some wee little toys, small enough to fit inside an ice-cube tray. I found some tiny plastic reindeer, some snowflake-shaped buttons and a few mini ornaments that did the trick. I meant to find some of those cute little plastic snowmen that bakeries sometimes stick in holiday cupcakes but I never managed to run any of those down. Really anything that strikes your fancy and will fit into the ice cube tray will work for your mini snow-globe soap.

Next you'll need to run to your nearest craft store for a brick of clear glycerine, some soap dye in blue, some soap scent (I chose peppermint because that's what Christmas smells like to me) and some soap glitter. From your kitchen you'll need the microwave, a dish to melt and pour things in (my Fiestaware gravy boat worked marvelously but a glass measuring cup would be fine too), a potato peeler, a cheese grater and a spoon for stirring. You'll also need a bar of white soap.

This is technically just "melt and pour" soap so it might be considered cheating to some hard-core soap enthusiasts but I'm not about to mess with lye or distilling vodka when I've got a small child acting as my personal assistant. Melt and pour is plenty homemade by our standards. Especially since I get to choose what shape the soap takes and what fun toys I put inside them.

First you'll cut up the glycerine into 1-inch chunks. Then microwave them on high for about 40 seconds. After that, microwave in 10 second intervals (stirring in between) until your soap is a nice gloppy liquid.

After your soap is melted you can add your blue dye, scent and glitter. I added two drops of blue to get this winter sky color. Just like food-coloring, it's always best to err on the not-putting-enough-color-in side than the oh-no-I've-put-too-much side. You can always add more dye. Much harder to get it out.

Don't be fooled by the picture above. It might look like ice cubes floating in Anartica but it is actually very hot. Not as hot as you might think though. I was afraid that this project would be too dangerous for my nearly-three-year-old but the soap actually cools quite quickly and as long as I kept her away from me while I was pouring, she was perfectly fine. In fact she helped me choose which toys to put in each ice cube block and she added the snow curls that would later become the snow globe floor. But I'm getting ahead of myself.

Pour your glycerin mixture into each section of the ice cube tray leaving about a quarter inch at the top. You will need this space later to add the snow floor and another layer of glycerine to seal the snow floor to the rest of the globe.

After you've poured the glycerine, let it cool just enough to form a thin skin on the top. It doesn't take long. Maybe a minute, maybe a few seconds. I didn't time it. I was too busy grating my snow to really pay attention. Then situate your toy in each ice cube block by poking it with a toothpick or pin. As it hardens it will be easier to manipulate so your toy is standing up straight and not floating dead at the top. Just make sure they are upside down because the "top" will be the "bottom" when you are done.

After all your toys are arranged, you can add your snow. We made our soap snow by peeling off curls from a regular bar of white bath soap. I also made some smaller snow shavings by grating it with a cheese grater. Soap is really easy to manipulate. I expect kids of all ages will get a kick out of this part.

When you sprinkle the snow on top, make sure to leave spaces that you can later fill in with a cap of glycerine. I made the mistake of packing the snow a little too tightly on a few of my cubes and they later fell apart because the snow shavings were not melted and there was nothing to hold them to the top part of the snow globe. Of course you could melt opaque white soap instead of using curls for snow but I sort of liked my shavings. They look really pretty in the end. Once you've added the snow shavings, top each cube off with a little more glycerine.

Next you'll pop it in the freezer for about twenty minutes or until the cubes are cool to touch from the underside of the ice cube tray (be sure to check the middle). Then you just up-end them like you would ice cubes and your little wee snow globes will be sitting pretty, all ready to be packaged!

I used a small paring knife to shave off some of the irregularities on the bottom but that was purely aesthetic. Once you wrap them, they look almost good enough to eat. Which reminds me, make sure your kids know that these are not candy. Unless of course you want to teach them a lesson about what happens when they say naughty words but that's another blog post for a different website.

You can wrap these any old way you want, but I chose clear cling wrap because I wanted my cool little glistening gems to show through the wrapping. I printed up some home made labels and tied them up with string. Now they will be perfect for mailing off to those distant relatives, stashing inside of stockings and saving for that bath time that needs a little something special.

If you found us through Stumble Upon! please give us a thumbs up if you liked what you read. It will make our day!

You may also enjoy:

- Christmas Crafts: Children's art ornaments

- Christmas Crafts: Felt Ornaments

- Christmas Crafts: Life-sized Gingerbread House

- Christmas Crafts: Paper Stained Glass Christmas

- Christmas crafts: Gumdrop ornaments to make with kids

- Edible Christmas Craft: make your own Peppermint Bark

Children's Art Ornaments

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Published 12.16.2008 | Permanent Link | Comments (7)

By Cindy Hopper

Here is a simple and fun craft that any child that is old enough to color with Sharpie markers will enjoy!

Supplies:

• Clear glass ball ornaments (2.63 inch) These can be found a craft store like Michael's


• Colored Sharpie markers


• Clear transparency (This can be purchased at a copy shop like Kinko's)

The hardest part of this craft is getting the correct size of circle that will fit into your glass ball. You may download the size of circle we used if you are using 2.63 inch glass ornament. You can also measure around the ornament and then divide that number by 3.14. Make sure you test a paper circle in your ornament before beginning this project!

Christmas Ornament Template

First make an outline of your design in one of the circles on the template

Next, cover the drawing the the transparency. Tape corners down to prevent slipping. Trace the circle and then color in the design with the Sharpie markers.

Cut out the circle, just slightly inside the line.

Roll up the circle and send it into the the glass ornament. It should fit snugly inside the ornament without bending too much.

The plastic circle will flatten out. You can adjust the placement with a pencil and tweezers. If you need to remove the plastic you can pull it out with tweezers.

A beautiful keepsake of your child's artwork!

Happy Holidays!

You may also enjoy:

- Christmas Crafts: Felt Ornaments

- Christmas Crafts: Life-sized Gingerbread House

- Christmas Crafts: Snow Globe Soap

- Christmas Crafts: Paper Stained Glass Christmas

- Christmas crafts: Gumdrop ornaments to make with kids

- Edible Christmas Craft: make your own Peppermint Bark

The Magic of Macy's at Christmas

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Published 12.15.2008 | Permanent Link

It's not too late to write your letter to Santa. The folks at Macy's are still collecting letters. For every letter you drop off into Macy's special Santa letterboxes (found at all Macy's stores), Macy's will donate $1 to the Make-A-Wish Foundation.

Giveaway over.

And, Macy's wants us to give a little something extra special, too. We have one (1) $20 Macy's gift card to give away. Just send an email to contact@alphamom.com with Believe in the subject title and you are entered to win (only US, sorry international folks and our regular contest rules apply-- see our policies). This contest is open until Wednesday, December 17, 2008 at 11:59:59pm EST. We will notify the winner by email. If we don't hear back within 24 hours, we will select another winner. Our winner will be selected randomly.

Green Christmas: Better World Books

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Published 12.15.2008 | Permanent Link | Comments (1)

The name says it all.

Who doesn't love books? Books even ranked #5 for this holiday season with the tween girls we surveyed.

Consider buying through Better World Books this holiday season. This socially-conscious online used bookseller is all shades of awesome.

The company sells millions of used titles online (as well as on Amazon.com and other sites) that might otherwise have ended up in a landfill, and gives a percentage of the proceeds to literacy groups worldwide.

Yet another reason to love them, shipping is free in the US, and every order is shipped carbon neutral with offsets from Carbonfund.org.

They have a running ticker on their site showing you how they're doing.

We want to give them a virtual hug.

Green Christmas

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Published 12.11.2008 | Permanent Link | Comments (0)

Green Christmas: How to have a joyous, eco-friendly Holiday Season

The holiday season may be in full swing, but it's not too late to pick up this treasure of a book for yourself, family or friends.

The irony of 184-pages being dedicated to having a Green Christmas is not lost on us. Since household waste increases by 25% during the holidays, we look at this book as an important investment. Here are some treasured tips we gleaned:

1. A simple green water-recycling habit to adopt for Christmas: save your cooked water and use it for your Christmas tree. Just think of all the nutrients being put to good use. Your kids will think this one is a hoot.

2. Don't forget to green your office holiday party. Be careful about over ordering (which tends to happen when you do so for large quantities) and make arrangements in advance to donate left overs to local shelter or food bank.

3. Decoration swaps. Simply brilliant.

Felt Ornaments

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Published 12.11.2008 | Permanent Link | Comments (7)

Thrifted Sweater Ornaments
By Ellen Luckett Baker

It's all about doing more with less this holiday season. So deck the halls with these miniature wreath ornaments made from cast-off wool sweaters. Felted sweaters are a thrifty and eco-friendly way to use recycled materials. Your old moth-eaten or thrifted sweaters can be made into plush toys, mittens, patchwork blankets, skirts, purses, scarves, laptop covers or anything else that you can imagine. The possibilities are endless. To felt a sweater, you must wash it in hot water and run it through the dryer. Keep in mind that your sweaters must be 100% wool in order to felt properly.

I used tapestry needles for this project because they are easy for young kids to handle and have a blunt tip. You could make these ornaments as large as you want, but if you get any bigger than 5" in diameter you might need to use wire to keep the circular shape.

Supplies:
· Felted sweaters
· Tapestry needle
· Heavy-duty coated cotton thread
· Twine or ribbon

Instructions:

Once felted, you'll need to cut your sweaters into 1" squares. Older kids can do this, but I find that my young kids are frustrated when trying to cut any type of fabric. After I cut the sweaters, I put the squares in a bowl for the kids and let them choose their colors. You'll need about 50 squares for each ornament. This may seem like a lot but once you get going, it moves along quickly.

Then cut a length of thread at least 30" long. Thread the needle and tie the ends of the thread into a knot, forming a loop. You'll want to make a couple of knots so that it won't slip through the loose fibers of the sweater. Older children can practice their knot tying skills. I have found that a loop is easier for children to sew with as the needle won't come un-threaded.

The kids can string the felt pieces by simply poking the needle through the center of each square. Once the thread is close to full (with a few inches on either end), you'll want to make sure that it will form a nice loop. You can see that my kids ran out of patience on a couple of these. Then you can pull your knot down a bit to make room to tie the two ends together a couple of times. An adult or older child will need to do this as the thread needs to be pulled tightly. Then add some twine or ribbon for hanging and you're done.

When crafting with younger kids, it's essential to have all of your supplies prepared and ready to go. My four-year-old stayed focused on this project for about 15 minutes, which was long enough to make one full ornament. My older daughter (almost six) made four of them! I think these little ornaments would make great teacher or neighbor gifts. Remember that these are made of wool, so be sure to store them in an airtight container to keep the moths away.

You may also enjoy:

- Christmas Crafts: Life-sized Gingerbread House

- Christmas Crafts: Snow Globe Soap

- Christmas Crafts: Paper Stained Glass Christmas

- Christmas crafts: Gumdrop ornaments to make with kids

- Edible Christmas Craft: make your own Peppermint Bark

Holiday-Themed Gifts for Kids

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Published 12.09.2008 | Permanent Link | Comments (0)

Simply, put, we love holiday-themed gifts. Here are our favorites.

Holiday Smencils

You haven't heard of Smencils yet? They are scented pencils made of 100% recycled newspapers. And, there are kits available so you can do it yourself. For the Holidays, they've come out will specially-scented ones like sugar plum, candy cane, gingerbread, sugar cookie and cinnamon (these are not the DIY ones, though). Nom nom nom.

Little Angels

We are in love with clothespin and small wooden dolls right now. Hopefully this love will last forever, because these dolls are surely heirlooms. This delightful work of art was created by Ten Finger Workshop and she does custom work too. So, don't hesitate to contact her directly for a Hanukkah doll.

Mini Snowglobe Ornaments

We found these mini snowglobe ornaments at Crate and Barrel and fell in love. They are simple and beautifully designed. And, they are small enough to fit into an advent box. They're sweeter than candy we say.

You may also be interested in:

- Great Stocking Stuffers for Kids
- Girl Pushed Mom Approved Gift Guide for Tweens
- Digital Cameras for Kids Reviewed (part 2)
- Kids' Digital Camera Reviews (part 1)
- Gifts for School-Aged Kids
- Best Personalized Gifts
- Book Gifts for Tween & Teen Girls

Girl Pushed, Mom Approved

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Published 12.08.2008 | Permanent Link | Comments (8)

What Tween Girls Want for the Holidays

Remember when you were a tweenage girl and all you wished for, was that your parents just understood you? That of course, included the impossible, like reading your mind. And that included buying you the right Holiday Gifts, too.

They say that necessity is the mother of invention so, we asked tweenage girls (ages 9 to 15) of the AllyKatzz safe-social networking site to tell us what they really want this Holiday season. Then, we asked our community, through Alphamom Labs, whether or not they approve of some of their choices.

What we now have, is knowledge of the hottest products for tweenage girls this season and a reality check into what moms are planning on buying (and not buying) in these hard economic times, and why.

Here are some results of our "Girl Pushed, Mom Approved" shopping survey. (If you are interested in the full report, please contact us)

What do Tweenage Girls want for the Holidays?

Girls’ Top Ten List:

1. Gift Card
2. Music/CDs
3. iPod or MP3 player
4. Clothing
5. Books
6. Mobile phone
7. Laptop
8. Makeup, perfume, hair accessories
9. Video Game Systems and/ or games (tie)
9. Digital Camera (tie)
10. DVDs

As an aside, does it not warm your heart to see Books in the Top 5? Yeah, us too!

Details of Wish Lists

You didn’t think we would leave you without a detailed map now, would you? Below are the girls' top ten lists by categories. We have bolded the moms' top three of the girls' choices.

Gift Cards
1. iTunes
2. Target
3. Claire’s
4. Hollister
5. Barnes & Noble
6. Walmart
7. Abercrombie & Fitch
8. Limited Too
9. American Eagle
10. Aeropostale

Music
1. Jonas Brothers
2. Demi Lovato
3. Taylor Swift
4. David Archuleta
5. Miley Cyrus
6. High School Musical 3 Soundtrack
7. Paramore
8. Vanessa Hudgens
9. Pink
10. Clique Girls

Clothing
1. Aeropostale (Tie)
1. Hollister (Tie)
3. Abercrombie & Fitch (Tie)
3. American Eagle (Tie)
5. Kohl’s
6. Pac Sun
7. Limited Too (Tie)
7. Hot Topic (Tie)
9. Wet Seal (Tie)
9. Forever 21 (Tie)
9. Old Navy (Tie)

Footwear Brands
1. Converse
2. Uggs
3. Vans (Tie)
3. Nike (Tie)
5. Ecko Red
6. DC
7. Rainbow (Tie)
7. Ed Hardy (Tie)
7. Wallabees (Tie)
7. Coach (Tie)

Footwear Retailers
1. Payless
2. Target (Tie)
2. Kohl’s (Tie)
4. Delia’s (Tie)
4. JC Penney (Tie)
4. American Eagle (Tie)
4. Pac Sun (Tie)
4. Shoe Carnival (Tie)
4. Walmart (Tie)
4. West 49 (Tie)

Books
1. Twilight (by a very wide margin)
2. The Clique Series
3. Books about Vampires (Tie)
3. Dear Dumb Diary (Tie)
5. Beacon Street Girls
6. Pretty Little Liars
7. Nancy Drew
8. Wicked

Other than Nancy Drew and Twilight, our survey shows us that moms need more information before making a decision on their book purchases. They just are not familiar with these other titles.

73% of moms said that they would buy a book they are not familiar with if it is approved by other moms. So, don’t despair, we have reviewed a number of the tween girls' preferred books.

Video Game Systems
1. Nintendo Wii
2. Nintendo DS
3. Xbox 360
4. PlayStation 3 (Tie)
4. PlayStation Portable (Tie)
5. PlayStation 2

The Wii led the pack with an astounding 56% of tweenage girls picking it as their top wish among game systems, followed by the Nintendo DS at 20.5%. our moms agree selecting the Nintendo systems ahead of the rest, by a very large margin.

Video Games
Girls love music and to be on their feet. Moms agree and are favorably disposed to the vast majority of the girls’ choices.

1. PopStar Guitar
2. Guitar Hero
3. Wii Fit (Tie)
3. Imagine Fashion NY (Tie)
5. Mario Kart (Tie)
5. Animal Crossing (Tie)
5. Cooking Mama (Tie)
5. Dance Dance Revolution (Tie)
9. Rockband
10. Sing It

DVDs
1. Camp Rock
2. High School Musical 3
3. Twilight
4. Another Cinderella Story
5. High School Musical 2
5. Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2
5. Journey to the Center of the Earth
8. Kit Kittredge
9. Juno
10. The Clique

Other Gift Categories

Makeup, Perfume and Hair Accessories: moms are pretty relaxed about giving these as gifts.

Electronics: moms favorites (in order): Video Gaming System, Digital Camera, and iPod.

Laptops: Even though the girls want them, the tough economic times means the outlook is not as good.

Mobile Phones: According to moms, the outlook is good for older tweens (aged 13+), not as good for the younger ones (ages 9-12).

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Tween Girl Gift Giveaways

Each day this week (starting December 8) you can enter to win an awesome prize at our partner site for tween girls, AllyKatzz.

Just head over there and enter your email address (and confirm that you are over 18).

If you are the lucky daily winner, they will contact you via email to get your mailing address to send you your prize. Simple! And since they are our BFF, we trust their word that they we will not give your email address to anyone. They are a SAFE site for tween girls. They NEVER share personal info.