felt ornaments (and kites)

This is a nice little ornament (or you could use it to decorate a present instead of a bow or tag): a little felt pom pom. Tutorial at the purl bee. This was made by niece, 6.

She also made this kite out of felt, washi tape, a scrap of pink cloth and linen thread.

free printables and more snowflakes

I have a new set of printables — these are mini holiday cards and gift tags from my auggie project — find them here. I think these are good for class holiday cards (for a preschool or daycare class).

And, from goodideasforyou.com via pinterest — turn those snowflakes into ballerinas!

snowflakes for chinook

5-point paper stars are easy and you can let even young children cut shapes out of the sides. It's impossible to cut the shapes incorrectly — it will always look good as far as I can tell. Some of ours went terribly wrong and we thought they looked like masks (I didn't photograph them). If you use brightly coloured origami paper it will also add a little colour into early December. There is a really good tutorial diagrammed at howaboutorange. I quickly photographed the sequence here. This is a purple one, for Chinook.

materials: square paper, scissors

lay paper coloured side down, turn so it is a diamond and fold the bottom point to the top to make a triangle (pictured)

snowy cocoa

Here are two recipes for cocoa from Snowy & Chinook, one with solid chocolate, Melty Chinook Hot Chocolate, and and one with cocoa, Snowy's Cocoa. We like the cocoa for breakfast sometimes. Have it with some healthy breakfast gingerbread and it's perfect for a chilly morning.

Overnight French Toast with Panettone (or without)

Last year, I put in Snowy & Chinook's recipe for pancakes, from Snowy & Chinook.

This year, I'll give you my favourite breakfast recipe. This is my version of Overnight French Toast: French toast you make the night before and then bake in the oven in the morning. This is a very kid-friendly recipe, both preparing and eating.

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Family Santa

Snuggled on the couch this dark Winter morning, preparing to write a little entry on one of the best Christmas books ever (Brian Wildsmith's 12 Days of Christmas) ...

Early Christmas trees

We don't yet have the tree. But, as some of us are quite excited about decorating already we painted some trees onto construction paper with washable poster paint for the little ones to decorate.

Then, for ornaments, we cut shapes out of scrap origami,

December giveaway: cards

We are having our December giveaway early, because the prize will be more useful before the winter holidays (although these are useful all year round): a set of our greeting cards. We've just gotten caught up and restocked our cards at buyolympia.

To win a set of our cards, please leave a comment below this post. Please be sure to leave an address so that we can contact you. Let us know in the commments below. Contest ends midnight December 9. This is open to anyone worldwide and there is no fee to enter.

Our cards are 4.75 inches x 4.75 inches and are blank inside. They are offset printed on glossy cardstock and come packaged with a white square envelope. There are 4 cards in our set, Windy, Sunny with his guitar, Snowy and Chinook jumping on the bed and Chinook with a snowball. Each one has a little drawing on the back. (Thank-you to buyolympia for the product photographs.)

Ideas for the winter holidays

If you didn't manage to work on our advent calendar, we've started a board on pinterest for Christmas and winter holiday ideas. (There are even a couple of nice very-very-last minute advent calendars on there.)

Match Box Advent Calendar

As there's less than a week before the start of Advent, we thought we'd quickly offer a classic project that your kids can enjoy all the way until Christmas.
Here are our directions for an advent calendar made of matchboxes.