Mother's Day Craft's

VOTIVE CANDLE HOLDER CRAFT

Materials you will need for this craft are:

one small baby food jar, cleaned with
label removed. The lid is not needed.

tissue paper or paper napkins (solid
colours and patterns both work)

mod podge or white glue

a votive candle

paint brush, cue tip or popsicle stick

OPTIONAL:

a printer, paper, scissors and something to
colour with

Instructions:

If using white glue you will need to thin it;
mix 1/2 glue and 1/2 water in a container
(like a margine container).

If using paper napkins, separate the plies.
Rip tissue paper or napkins into pieces about
1 inch by 1 inch. It is good if the pieces
are jagged. Patterned tissue paper or
napkins work nicely. Ripping the tissue
paper is good motor control practice for the
kids (and is a lot harder than it looks for
some!)

Using your paint brush, cue tip or popsicle stick,
paint the baby food jar with the mod podge or
thinned glue. Only paint the main jar area
(not the part where you would screw the top on
we don't want any paper to catch fire).

Paste tissue paper all over the jar. Feel free
to overlap pieces or use different colours or
patterns on the same jar. I keep lots of
different tissue paper from gifts and when it
comes time to do a craft, I let the kids pick
the ones they want to use.

Paint more glue over the top of any pieces that
look a bit loose.

Let dry.

Print out template of choice (this part is
optional... the candle holder looks nice
without the template pieces pasted on. Or,
cut out a small picture of the child and
paste it on instead of the template. Or,
decorate with sparkle glue.)

Color if necessary (depends on which template
you chose).

Cut out the decorations you wish to use.
Glue them onto the baby food jar (keep them off
the screw top area).

Put a votive candle into the candle holder and
give it to Mom or Grandma! (I like to make two
matching holders for each recipient)

You can tie a ribbon around the holder to
decorate, but I recommend the recipient remove
it if they plan to light their candle.

When you light the candle, it will shine very
prettily through the tissue paper, so don't
totally cover the holder with template pieces!

YOU ARE MY SUNSHINE CRAFT

The depressing thing about Mother's Day crafts is that
I likely won't get the ones I design and I really want
my kids to think up something like this one for me!
Although meant to be a fridge magnet, if you don't
have magnet backings, don't worry about it too much.
Use the craft for a card or just as individual
pictures to hang up. I'm sure mom will love it no
matter how the kids present it!

MATERIALS NEEDED:

Printer
Paper
Scissors
Something to colour with
Magnet backing
A photograph or hand drawn picture of mom's face and a
photograph or hand drawn picture of the child's face
that will fit inside the circle of the flower and the
circle of the sun.

To make the craft sturdier, you can paste the paper
template onto a piece of poster board or cardboard
before cutting it out. (Whenever I need poster board,
I usually use the cardboard that comes out of nylon
stocking packages)

INSTRUCTIONS:

Print out the template of choice. Glue the template
onto poster board or cardboard if you wish to make the
craft sturdier.

Colour (where appropriate) and cut out the template
pieces. Younger kids may need help with this.
Cut the picture of mom and picture of child out in a
circle shape to fit inside the sunflower and the sun.
Paste mom's picture into the sunshine and the child's
picture into the sunflower.

Attach the magnet to the back (most of the magnets
from the craft store come with a sticky backing, but
if you have one that doesn't use a glue gun to attach)
When printing the template, make sure to set all your
margins to zero so that the page prints properly.
If you are using the black and white template, print
it on yellow coloured construction paper as an
alternative to colouring it in.

Feel free to decorate further with sparkles, sparkle
glue, sequins or anything else the kids can think of.
When the children give mom her gift, make sure they
sing!

WORDS TO:
"YOU ARE MY SUNSHINE"

You are my sunshine
My only sunshine
You make me happy
When skies are grey
You never know dear
How much I love you
So please don't take my sunshine away!

(substitute the word MOM or GRANDMA for the word DEAR
in the third last line)

There are more words to the song, but this is a good
length for younger children.