These traditional Italian biscuits are made from a combination of a caramel biscuit mix crammed full of fruit and nuts, and a thick chocolate base. Topped with edible gold decorations, they are the perfect home-made Christmas gift.
Festive Jar Lights
Candles and lanterns are an obligatory part of Christmas decorations, and after our success at making a stained-glass window picture, we decided to make our own lantern using the same technique.
You'll need:
- a jar
- PVA glue
- coloured tissue paper
- black paper or card
- scissors
- pencil
- candle
- Draw out the outline of your design onto black card (the festive jar lights template is here).
- Cut out the parts that will be let the light through.
- Glue coloured tissue paper to the reverse side and leave to dry.
- Wrap it around a jar and glue it into place, I used a small amount of sellotape to help hold it in place.
- Place a tealight candle insight, rest on a heatproof mat and light the candle. (Never leave a child unattended with a lit candle, or leave a candle burning unattended).
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'Counting Down To Christmas' is a craft bloggers link-up held each week in the eight weeks preceeding the big day itself. Each week we will be posting a different Christmas craft activity.
Rainy Day Mum ~ The Boy and Me ~ The Madhouse ~ Here Comes the Girls
Christmas Cornflake Cakes
Cornflake cakes are a far better no-cook cake than crispie cakes, the crunch is much better and they don't fall apart so easily! We decided to make some the other day but jazzed them up a little bit especially for Christmas.
You'll need:
- cornflakes
- chocolate
- golden syrup
- raisins
- Melt the chocolate in a bain marie (or bowl over hot water).
- Remove from the heat and pour into a large bowl coating the cornflakes and not leaving any residual chocolate in the base. If there's too much chocolate, add some more cornflakes.
- Squeeze in some golden syrup, this helps to bind the cake together and give a smoother texture. Stir in the raisins.
- Scoop into cupcake cases and leave to set.
- Once set, we sprayed ours with edible gold spray paint and sprinkled on multi-coloured candy buttons to resemble bauble.
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'Counting Down To Christmas' is a craft bloggers link-up held each week in the eight weeks preceeding the big day itself. Each week we will be posting a different Christmas craft activity.
This week the co-hosts are Rainy Day Mum ~ Making Boys Men ~ Here Come the Girls ~ TheBoyandMe
If you have any Christmas Recipes for or that you have made with kids please link below
Home-Made Christmas Tree Decorations
Every year since The Boy was born, we buy him his own special Christmas decoration (to help build up a collection for first adult Christmas tree) and write the year on the bottom of it. I always aim to buy traditional style decorations that have a story to them and he's fascinated by them. This year he's old enough to start making his own decorations and I can't wait to see our Christmas tree filled with his home-made decorations in the future.
You'll need:
- green felt
- red felt
- green or red ribbon
- green, white and red buttons
- felt holly leaves and berries (I bought these from Baker Ross)
- PVA glue
- scissors
- Draw two large circles (one red and one green) and then draw a small inner circle in the middle (I used a large coffee mug rim to draw around).
- Cut two smaller circles out of the green felt, and two from the red. These will also need an inner circle, but this must be bigger than the inner circle on the large red or green circle.
Holly wreath decoration:
- Cut a 20cm length of ribbon and feed it through the middle of the large green circle, glue it into place and tie the end.
- Glue the red circles into place over the ribbon on each side of the large green circle.
- Stick holly leaves and berries over the top of the red small circles on both sides and leave to dry.
Button wreath decoration:
- Cut a 20cm length of ribbon and feed it through the middle of the large red circle, glue it into place and tie the end.
- Glue the green circles into place over the ribbon on each side of the large red circle.
- Glue a selection of red, green and white buttons over the small green circles on both sides.
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'Counting Down To Christmas' is a craft bloggers link-up held each week in the eight weeks preceeding the big day itself. Each week we will be posting a different Christmas craft activity.
Rainy Day Mum ~ Mummy Mummy Mum! ~ Life at the Zoo ~ The Fairy and The Frog~ Jennifer’s Little World ~ Making Boys Men ~ Mama Pea Pod
Home-Made Christmas Cards
Before The Boy was born I used to spend hours looking for the perfect Christmas cards which would complement my chosen wrapping paper and the theme of the year. Then along came a perfect little being who looked incredibly cute dressed up in a Christmas costume, and he would be duely photographed and the image printed onto the front of personalised Christmas cards. This year he's going to be three and a half at Christmas and I just can't do it to him anymore; so in addition to traditional Hallmark cards, he's going to be making cards for family this year.
Here are some very simple cards that your pre-schooler can make within a few minutes.
You'll need:
- red and green card blanks
- blue card blanks
- white paint
- green felt
- sequins and stars
- bauble card blanks
- glue
- ribbon
- felt pens
I'm not going to do a ste-by-step guide because the photos really show how self-explanatory the cards are!
One tip: start making them now because pre-schoolers are not known for their ability to sit down for a few hours and make cards, then write them!
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'Counting Down To Christmas' is a craft bloggers link-up held each week in the eight weeks preceeding the big day itself. Each week we will be posting a different Christmas craft activity.
This week the co-hosts are Rainy Day Mum ~ Mummy Mummy Mum! ~ Life at the Zoo ~ Here Come the Girls ~ The Fairy and The Frog ~ Jennifer's Little World ~ Playful Learners ~ Making Boys Men
This post contains sponsored links. The content is original, honest and uncontrived!
Home-Made Advent Calendar
I know it's only the 1st of November, but in about three weeks time you'll be grateful that I started these posts early.
Advent: (n) The coming or arrival, especially of something extremely important.
For Christians, Advent starts on the fourth Sunday before Christmas Day where a candle on an Advent wreath is lit for each week leading up to the celebration of the birth of Jesus.
For most families nowadays, the word 'advent' used around the festive season conjures up chocolate calendars printed with their youngster's favourite television character, some may have a gorgeous 'traditional-style' wooden tree with 24 drawers in, allowing it to be reused each year. And yes, I said '24' because 'advent' means the 'approach of'. It's a way of marking the coming of Christmas Day, and as such should not have a 25th window. This practise of counting down each day was started by German Lutherans at the beginning of the 19th century. Not such a new tradition hey?
We've been making our own simple Advent calendar to use in a few weeks time when December starts.
You'll need:
- coloured foam or card numbers
- 24 boxes*
- coloured, shredded tissue paper
- ribbon*
- 24 'treats'
- cardboard
- glue
- gold paint
- sequins*
- scissors
- paintbrush
Set out the numbers into a numberline up to 24.
Assemble the boxes.
Stick on the numbers to the front of the box.
Place the shredded tissue paper and a treat inside each bag. (I've used a mixture of Christmas tree decorations and chocolate coins). Tie the handles together with a length of ribbon, long enough to tie off the hanging circles (30cm).
Draw four circles with an inner circle in them, creating a hoop shape. Cut them out and stick two together. Once dried, paint both sides with gold and stick gold and silver sequins on.
Tie four lengths of ribbon to the first hoop. Cut four double length strips of ribbon and tie them to the second hoop. Gather all of the eight ends together and tie into a knot. This forms the loop to hang the calendar from. From the first hoop, suspend twelve of the boxes and from the second tie the other twelve. If you arrange this in a random order then it makes it more of a challenge to find the numbers.
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'Counting Down To Christmas' is a craft bloggers link-up held each week in the eight weeks preceeding the big day itself. Each week we will be posting a different Christmas craft activity.
This week, the co-hosts are Rainy Day Mum ~ Mummy Mummy Mum! ~ Life at the Zoo ~ Here Come the Girls ~ The Fairy and The Frog ~ Jennifer's Little World ~ Playful Learners ~ Making Boys Men.
