Christmas Cards Made with Kids

Inspiration: Now that D is almost 6, she really wanted to help me make cards this year.  She had little Felties stickers that she got in a present and of course we had to use them.  This is what we ended up with:


How we Made Them: D chose a scene that we both drew based on how she described her idea.  We colored our scenes with Colored Pencils and then placed the Felties in the scene after removing the sticker backing.  Inside the cards, I wrote "We wish you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year".
In the pictures above, D's version is on the right-hand side and mine is on the left.  Pretty good artwork for an almost 6-year old.

Notes: D loves to draw so doing a card when she got to draw was perfect.  In the past we've also glued cut-outs from magazines to make cards or stickers or small mosaic-like pieces of paper.  She also really enjoyed that we were both making the cards at the same time.  She could "borrow" small ideas from mine and I could "borrow" ideas from hers and they both still came out unique.

Cake: Birthday Ghost

I realize this post has nothing to do with cards.  However, my birthday was earlier this month and I wanted a cake.  I only have 1 shaped cake pan.  It's a ghost.  I also needed to practice decorating a cake for a party that's now only 1 week away.  So I decided to make myself and birthday cake as practice.  It turned out pretty good and only took me about 2 hours to decorate.  My mom used to make all our birthday cakes and we'd see her decorating them (and steal a fingerful of frosting or two in the process).  She's made all of my daughter's birthday cakes (and one hair cutting cake) too.  I've helped here and there on them (creating Starburst gems for a tiara, piping a line or words).  So this is my first cake decorated all by myself.  I brought it to work on my birthday - it was all gone an hour and a half later.

Card: Valentine's Day - Bananas!

Inspiration: In keeping with the fruit theme from the past couple of years, I thought bananas look like smiles and might make nice Valentine's.

How I Made Them: I bought yellow foamie paper at Pat Catan's.  A Google search for "bunch of bananas" found images that I printed in a side of about 1" by 2".  I tried 3 different images and traced and cut out my bunches and used glitter gel pens to draw the lines.  The ones in the image is the bunch that I thought looked the best.  Quick bit of glue to secure the bananas to the cards (which were bookmark cardstock from Hollo's but I used my paper cutter to get it down to 2 1/2" strips - I think the width was about 1 1/4" to begin with).  I used the same glitter gel pen to write "I go BANANAS for you, Valentine!".  My now 5-year old will be adding her name to the bottom after the heart - she loves to write her name herself.

Alternatives:

• I did buy some stiff felt to use instead, but the foamie is much easier to cut and draw on.
• Not sure what fruit I'll do next year...still toying with the star in an apple...

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