Pinecone Christmas Trees craft

For this Christmas craft you only need

• Green spray paint/ acrylic paint
• Pinecones
• Coaster
• Glue
• Embellishments (sequins, buttons, etc)
• Fake snow (or cotton balls)

How to Make Pinecone Christmas Tree Craft

You can ensure there are no insects in the pinecones by popping them in the oven for a few minutes just to be sure. Paint the pinecones green and let dry. Glue the bottoms of the pinecones to a small coaster. You can add snow by painting the tips of the pinecones white.

Decorate your trees however you want! You can use embellishments such as sequins or buttons or you may use tiny colorful cotton balls

Pom Pom Ornaments

A fun way to add some start to your Christmas is to have your kids make their own Christmas tree ornaments.  The pom pom ornament is one of my personal favorites and it’s easy to make and suitable for small children.

Materials Needed for Pom Pom Ornaments

For this Christmas craft you will need the following

• mini pom poms (colors of your choice)
• plastic ornaments (that can be opened)
• ribbons (in colors of your choice preferably Christmas colors such as green and red).

How to make Christmas Ornament

As mentioned before, this craft is very simple. It literally has only two steps. You simply open the plastic ornament by screwing off the lid and then put as many mini pom poms inside the ornament and put the lid back on then insert the ribbon through the hole at the top of the ornament and tie it into a bow. And that’s it.

Glittering Popsicle Stick Christmas Tree Ornaments

The kids will love this one. Not only do they get to eat loads of popsicles but they get to recycle the sticks to make something fun!

Materials needed:

• Popsicle sticks
• Stick on rhinestones
• Foam star
• Hot glue  

How to Make Glittering Popsicle Stick Christmas Tree Ornaments

1. Paint some popsicle sticks; paint some purple and some green.
2. Cut the green popsicle sticks into 6 pieces in 1/2″, 1″, 1-1/2″, 2″, 2-1/2″, and 3″ lengths.
3. Add a generous glob of hot glue on the end of the purple popsicle stick, place both ends of the twine on top of the glue, then sandwich the 1/2″ piece of green popsicle stick on top to hold the twine hanger in place.
4. Place the other popsicles evenly on the purple popsicle stick and glue them in place with hot glue.
5. Use hot glue to attach the sparkly foam sticker star.
6. Decorate your tree with glittery rhinestones!

Santa Belly Ornament

For this Christmas craft, you will need the following:

• Red Christmas ornament
• Black paint or black paint
• Gold Glitter paper
• Glue

How to make a Santa belly Ornament

Place the black tape once around the red ornament or paint a thick line in the middle of the ornament

Cut out a square in the gold glitter paper and cut a square hole in the middle of the square glitter paper. This will be the belt.

Glue the opposite side of the glitter paper and place in the center of the ornament on the thick black line or the black tape.

Santa Sticks

This Christmas Craft is very easy to make. All you need is some popsicle sticks, red paint, black paint, mini red, yellow, and white pompom, red ribbons, and cotton balls.

How to make Santa Sticks

To make these adorable Santa sticks, paint about ¾ of the popsicle sticks red and the other far end of the stick red to represent Santa’s hat. Place the mini white pompom using glue to represent the tip of Santa’s hat. Paint one line of white paint below the red paint to represent the brim of Santa’s hat. Use the black paint to draw Santa’s eyes below the white paint. Use the red mini pompom as Santa‘s nose.

Pull apart the cotton to make Santa’s beard and glue it below Santa’s nose. The section for  Santa’s face should remain unpainted as this represents Santa’s face.

A few inches below Santa’s face, back on the red paint, paint a black line through to represent Santa’s belt and add the yellow mini pompom that represents Santa’s belt buckle.

Easy Popsicle sticks Christmas tree

This is another popsicle stick Christmas tree, but this one is easier than the first. You will need a few popsicle sticks and some paints in the colors of your choice. You can group the popsicle sticks in groups of three and paint the groups of three in the same colors. Use glue to glue the groups of popsicle sticks together to make a triangle. For the top of the triangle glue a string at the top and a star. Glue some mini pompoms on the popsicle.

Tea Light Snowman Ornaments

Talk about a bright idea! Kids will love this Christmas craft. All you need for this one is ribbons and a black sharpie to draw the eyes and the mouth of the snowman’s face, a pink sharpie for the cheeks, a string to tie the ornament on a tree, a tea light of course(gosh!) a ribbon for the scarf and a black cartridge paper that you cut out in the shape of a snow man’s hat. Easy peasy lemon squeezy!

See https://www.redtedart.com/tea-light-snowman-ornament/ for sensible instructions

Photo by redtedart.com

The post 8 Christmas Craft Ideas for Kids appeared first on GingerbreadMom.

Now, this lady whom I will call Julie (since I don’t remember her name) says she has two boys and one girl, and she just refrain from telling her daughter that she is beautiful. She said that she noticed with her two older boys, no one commented on their looks, rather they would be praised for their efforts and abilities, how strong they were, how fast they could run, etc. Whereas people always, ever since her daughter was born commented on how daughter’s physical appearance, which according to her was just a genetic lottery that has nothing to do with who her daughter is as a person and that’s when I said “ah ha” . This was the moment she has me think about my own childhood.

Now I consider myself, truly to be an average Jane, I’m not one to command a double take when I enter a room, but funny enough I have always known this and it has never ever bothered me. When I was growing up, my parents never complimented me on my looks. Instead I remember them bursting out laughing when I would give these long explanations of a situation or tell a story and I remember vividly them saying that I talked so much I was going to be a commentator or a lawyer.

Needless to say they were right, I did become a lawyer. But that aside they showed that they enjoyed my personality and my little quirks. My siblings too enjoyed my long story and they thought I was funny and parallel to that they would occasionally make fun of my wide ungirly-like big feet, which truly didn’t bother me.

As an adult, now I like to dress up, wear makeup and look good but I have no compulsion to be the most beautiful girl in the room, nor am I bothered by the presence of a beautiful woman. The family that I grew up in didn’t put a value on physical appearance and so though I can appreciate physical beauty I am not hung up about it.

This led me to the question, is there a right way to compliment kids? I mean compliment is always positive, is there any harm in complimenting your children?

These questions had me scoring through child psychologist books and blogs seeing what the experts have to say on the subject matter and I made some notes on a few specific ways of complimenting kids the right way.

How to Compliment your Kids the Right Way 

These are a few ways to compliment your child the right way.

Praise sincerely and honestly

As a mother, I can tell you that I have pulled this stunt sometimes, where I just throw out an insincere compliment just to tick another box on the “good mom” checklist. However, you can see that kids can detect this and usually it means nothing to them. What the experts say is that when you compliment your child ensure that it is sincere. Stop it with the quick, “yes honey that looks great”, when they show you an artwork. What I do is a pause from what I am doing and look at what my child is showing me and find something positive to say, like “wow you drew this by yourself”, I must take a photo and send it to grandma, this is really good”. That I believe is a more sincere compliment that shows that you are paying attention.

Be Specific and Descriptive

This second advise sorts of run into the first, you want to show your child that you are paying attention. You don’t just want to throw out compliments like “You are so smart” . You want to be specific. Instead find something that your child has done or said that makes him smart, then say , wow you are so smart for figuring that out”.

Praise Your Child’s efforts

Be Mindful to Praise your child’s efforts and necessarily say their abilities I have seen it too often where parents praise their children’s raw talent. I personally find this to be a little dangerous. Praising a child’s raw talent or letting them know or feel like they can get by on raw talent, you run the risk of molding a lazy adult. I know so many people who are extremely talented but incredibly lazy and their talent alone was not sufficient, so it is important to praise your child’s efforts and supplement them with letting her know that she is talented.

Catch them being Good

Ever so often we spend a lot of our time as parents telling our children what to do, and teaching them how to do something right or pointing out that they have done something wrong. Too often we missed out on catching our children being good so we can compliment them in the moment. This will encourage them to do so more often.

Compliment Your child Often

There is no such thing as over complimenting your child, as long as it is sincere and earned. Compliment your child as often as you see fit.

No matter how old we get, we all have a natural need for our parents’ approval and children more so than adults. Compliments helps to build your child’s confidence, self-esteem and self-worth. It is a tough and cold world out there so arm your child with the shield of confidence by simply paying more attention and complimenting them.

The post Should you think Twice About Complimenting Your child? appeared first on GingerbreadMom.

As a mother of two girls, I am very mindful of the values I instill in them. During my early years, I struggled with finding my confidence and I feel like that held me back a little. Luckily for me though I found my confidence around my mid to late 20s. But what could I have accomplished had I found it sooner, and what could I have avoided?

Benefits of Empowering Quotes for Daughters

The benefits of empowering quotes on the lives of children are undeniable. It helps to build confidence and self-esteem. Children in general build their identity, question the world around them, and identify their strengths in what they see and hear. With the first institution being the home, I think as parents we have a responsibility to instill and reinforce positive behaviors in our children, especially now in a world where everything is vying for their attention. I truly believe that strong societies need strong women and I want to empower my girls to be just that.

For my children, I want nothing more than for them to grow up to be strong and responsible, and most importantly happy human beings. Since women throughout history have shared their knowledge and wise thoughts through their speeches, books and interviews, this has led me to compile some of my favorite empowering quotes that I have gathered through my reading and observation of powerful women over the years.

 Some of these empowering quotes I have designed into printable art and hang in my daughters’ rooms. In this article I will list, what I believe are the most valuable empowering quotes from some of the world’s most influential women.

I have made some of these quotes into adorable printable art for girls’ rooms or girls’ nurseries. You can access these printables in my Etsy shop here.

Empowering Quotes for Daughters

1. The most courageous act is still to think for yourself. Aloud.” – Coco Chanel

• 
  2. Nothing Works Unless you do-Maya Angelou

3.Do not hold back your waves because people want to swim- Mawwada

4. Be the Heroine of your Life. -Nora Ephron

5. Everything is within your power, and your power is within you- Janice Trachtman

6. Taking joy in living is a woman’s best cosmetic- Rosalind Russell

7. The most common way people give up their power is by thinking they don’t have any.- Alice Walker

8. Life is tough my darling and so are you- Stephanie Bennett-Henry

9. If you live for people’s acceptance, you’ll die from their rejections.-Lecra

10. Girls should never be afraid to be smart.- Emma Watson

11. There’s no prerequisites to worthiness. You’re born worthy,- Voila Davis

12. Nothing will work unless you do. – Maya Angelou

13. Never bend your head. Always hold it high. Look the world straight in the eye. Helen Keller

14. Never lose your capacity to smile and laugh, nor to inspire others with your warmth and kindness. – Queen Elizabeth II

15. Be present in all things and thankful for everything- Lisa Kleypas

The post <strong>15 Empowering Quotes for Daughters</strong> appeared first on GingerbreadMom.