Handmade Christmas Cards and Gift Tags Day 7 countdown to Christmas

Our countdown to Christmas match box today said we were to make Christmas cards and gift tags. I hadn't thought about what to do when I made the activity list and after supper when we opened our matchbox (we usually open them in the morning and then I have all day to plan but we forgot this morning), I had a little panic attack as Sierra asked to use mommies rubber stamps for the cards. I wanted them to be more crafty then just stamps on the card so I am quite pleased with how they turned out since it was a last minute idea.

To make them we cut an 8 1/2" X 11" piece of cream cardstock in half and then folded each half piece in half to make a card.

I lightly drew a line across the card to divide the top from the bottom of the card (so light it's hard to see in the picture). Sierra then used red acrylic paint to put fingerprints on the top half of the card,

and then she painted lines on the bottom half with a paintbrush.

When she had about a dozen done we laid them all off to the side to dry.

While they were drying I used a Santa rubber stamp and black ink to print out Santas on cream cardstock. Then I used a 1 1/2" circle punch to punch out the Santas. I find these easiest to do by stamping the paper first, then turning the punch upside down so I can see the stamped image. This allows a more accurate Santa placement within the circle.

Next Sierra coloured the Santa suit in red with markers while I punched out red circles with a 2" circle punch. The coloured Santas were then glued onto the red circle.

Then we took a piece of ribbon and glue it across the dividing line.

Next we cut off the excess ribbon from the edges and glued the red/white/Santa circle to the right side of the card.

Voila! All done! We also made some snowmen gift tags in a few minutes flat. To make these we punched 2"circle out of white paper with a circle paper punch.

Then the girls drew on a carrot nose and button eyes and mouth.

We punched a small hole and added a ribbon to attach to a gift. On the back we wrote To: and Fr: and left them blank so they would be ready to use for our gift giving.

In other news we found Elfie on a Shelf this morning for the first time since he left his box. He didn't look very comfortable and I am sure he will be glad when we go to bed so he can move somewhere else.

Do you have an Elf on the Shelf? What has your been up to?