More Recycled Bows

I hope everyone had a Merry Christmas!  We had a nice quiet Christmas in our apartment in Jakarta.  It was different not to be around friends and extended family, but it was also nice since this was the first time we had ever celebrated Christmas just with our little family.

Anyways, awhile back I posted that I had made some recycled gift bows.  I ended up making tons of them for the Holiday Market fundraiser put on by the school my kids attend.  I put mounting tape on the bottom of the bows so the kids (first graders were in charge of the Holiday Market) could just peel and stick like you would on a normal gift bow. 

I kept the wrapping paper from our Christmas gifts, and I will make more holiday bows for next year.  I think this craft is a great way to give new life to all that wrapping paper that would otherwise just end up in the trash.  I love making these bows…it really can be addicting because making them is so fun.  I just love the way the recycled bows look. I think they are so much more interesting than your average bow. 

Teacher Gift

My son made a snowman from an empty peanut butter container.  I got the idea from Google images when I searched for container crafts.  The hat is made from the cuff of an old sock and the scarf is made from a band cut from just under the cuff.  He colored the band green with a marker, and we tied it on the container.  I helped him tie a bow around the top of the snowman’s hat.  He cut out larger circles from black paper for the eyes and smaller black circles for the mouth.  He cut out an orange triangle-shaped piece for the nose.  The face parts were glued onto the container.  We originally put cotton balls inside the jar.  Then, I thought it would be a good idea to line it with white paper and put a treat on the inside. We took out the cotton balls and I put in some home-made treats. 

My son also made his teacher a card. I wrapped the snowman and card in a clear plastic bag that used to contain some cardstock I bought. I tied it off at the top with a gold ribbon that was from a previous gift someone had given to us.

The whole gift minus the treats was made from re-used items.  I thought it would be nice for my son to give a gift he had made himself…a gift from his heart. I hope his teacher likes it.  We are going to make more snowmen stuffed with treats to give to friends.

This snowman craft is a good way to use those old jars and containers I’ve been accumulating.

 

Gone Public

I made the new blog (http://www.5abroad.blogspot.com/) public today.  I think I've sorted out all the travel and living in Indonesia-related posts.  I hope that this change will be a positive one.  If it doesn't help anyone else, I think it will help me be more organized and focused for future posts.  Sorry for any confusion.

New Blog

I've decided that I want to have this blog focus on things related to living a more sustainable lifestyle.  Therefore, I am moving any posts about traveling and living in Indonesia to a new blog: http://www.5abroad.blogspot.com/.  It will probably take me a few days to move the blog posts to the new blog and to reorganize both blogs.  I will make the new blog public soon.  I want to make sure that I am not duplicating content in two separate blogs. I hope you will come visit me at the new blog and continue to read about our adventures living and traveling abroad.

Another Turkey Craft

I was looking for another craft for the kids to work on and found some fun ideas on pinterest.  I combined a few things that I saw and this is what I came up with:



My 3-year old let me trace her hand.  Then I cut out the shape of her hand on different colored sheets of paper.  I did both the right and left hands.  My daughter put glue on the hands and I helped her attach them to a toilet paper roll.  The face is also made of scraps of colored paper.  I thought leaving the toilet paper roll open on top looked a little funny so I added a hat. 



We put the finished turkey in our front entryway next to the toilet paper roll pumpkins that we made for Halloween.  I just removed the jack-o-lantern faces from the pumpkins.  This was a fun craft to make with my little one.  I love looking at her little handprints and she loves her turkey!

Thanksgiving Turkey Craft

So we were a little late in getting started on Halloween crafts so I thought we would get an earlier start on Thanksgiving.  Sunday evening the kids made turkeys from a paper plate and scraps of colored paper.  They decorated the turkeys with markers and crayons.  I had the kids tell me what they were thankful for and we wrote them on the feathers. The older 2 kids wanted to do their own writing. It was so sweet to read the things they were thankful for: friends, family, church, the earth, toys, bed, clothes, food, home, car, etc.  We had lots of fun making these turkey decorations.







Our new wall decorations! Looks like one of the turkeys is missing a foot…lol.

Fun Halloween

The kids had so much fun this Halloween.  I would never have guessed that the kids would be able to celebrate Halloween in Jakarta.  The locals seemed to know about Halloween.  There were costumes and Halloween decorations available at the stores.  Even our apartment complex put on a Halloween party for the kids and organized trick-or-treating.  We had a great time celebrating Halloween in Jakarta!

In a previous post, my daughter and I decorated a Pringles can to look like Frankenstein. She decided she wanted a whole Frankenstein family so we made a “Mommy Frankenstein” from another Pringles can and a “Baby Frankenstein” from a toilet paper roll.



I made some spider cookies for a bake sale at school.  It’s sugar cookies coated with white royal icing and swirled rings of black icing.



I also baked some owl cupcakes for a Halloween party.  I got the idea by doing a search for Halloween cupcakes online.  There are lots of cool images for owl cupcakes.  The eyes are made from Oreo cookies and the pupils and nose are M&M’s. 



Here are my three munchkins dressed up for Halloween.  My son wore camouflage and we bought a plastic gun.  We already had the helmet.  My daughter wore her ballerina outfit.  My youngest daughter wore a dress made from one of my old prom dresses, and we made a crown from tin foil and cardboard.



We had a fun-filled Halloween.   We hope you did too!