Making soap our Day 14 of our countdown to Christmas

Our activity today was to make gifts for our family and friends. I saw THIS post last Christmas and have spent a whole year wanting to do it :)

Mine are NO where near as cute as hers and we had to overcome a lot of little mishaps along the way but in the end most of them turned out OK.

I bought a soap making kit at Value Village for $5.99 shortly after I saw the post mentioned above which was my source of inspiration.

This kit had scents and colours included but no clear glycerin soap so I bought a chunk from Micheal's with a 40% off one item coupon.

Getting ready to start making our soap

First mishap...I can't find the bag of miniature toys I got at Value Village months ago in preparation for this activity.

Second mishap...discovering our ice cube trays are really small (that or they toys I randomly grabbed to use now since I can't find the other bag are just too big)!!!

We started by grating some white soap. I did this first as in the tutorial I read it sounded like a wise idea to have this all ready to go.

The tutorial didn't mention how much soap to melt so I guesses and melted 8 one inch squares of the clear glycerin soap in a Pyrex measuring cup in the microwave. I let it go for 40 seconds at first, stirred it and then melted on 15 second intervals and stirred each time. I only had to do that twice.

After the soap is melted it's time to add the soap dye. I neglected to check the colours of the soap dye in my kit previous to starting tonights activity. As it turned out I had no blue all I had was green and red.

Third mishap...no blue dye :(

At the last minute I decided I really wanted them blue so I added a drop of food colouring instead...too big of a drop as they are really blue! Fourth mishap. I am hoping the food colouring doesn't affect the soap or dye skin :(

I did get lucky and have peppermint scents and added some in with the colouring and stirred until I had an even colour.

Next it was time to pour the melted soap into our ice cube tray. Be sure to leave about a 1/4 inch space in each compartment as you need to add the toys and have room for the shavings and top coat. I was only able to fill 11 of the trays compartments with soap before I ran out...Fifth mishap.

Next the girls placed the small toys (which were really too big for our small tray...6th mishap) into each compartment after the soap was just beginning to solidify. You have to do this quick as once it starts to solidify (approx 3 minutes) it continued hardening very fast. Make sure you put your toys in upside down as the top of the tray will actually be the bottom of your soap.

Alot of our toys stick out as they were too big for our tiny trays

Next the girls covered the tray with the grated white soap. Be sure to pack the soap down so you have room for the top coat.

Next I melted 3 more 1 inch squares and poured a thin layer over the whole tray as a top coat. This holds the grated soap in place.

When the top coat was evenly spread over the tray I popped it in the freezer for about 20 minutes. Make sure not to remove it until the soap is cold to the touch.

When solid, I gave the tray a little twist and popedp out the soaps. Easy peasy :)

Here are some of our soaps. I still need to carve the edges a bit to clean up the rough edges and then wrap them. I plan to do them in clear cellophane so they will be visible through the packaging. We will tie them onto the top of packages as a nice little decoration.

Most of our trinkets inside are lopsided (7th mishap) but for a first attempt they came out OK. Next time...I'll be more prepared and make certain I have everything organized before starting the activity...but we will definitely be making more soap soon!

An Elf on the shelf mishap

The dreaded happened...our Elfie got touched and was knocked over! He was getting bold and we found him playing in the tub yesterday driving his ice breaker on the way back from the North Pole when the unthinkable happened...our girls were goofing around in the bathroom and Elfie got knocked over!!! Oh no will Elfie loose his magic???

We went to bed last night hoping for Elfie to still have his magic but this morning we woke up and found him still there...

BUT he had a small little letter in his arms...

At first Sierra didn't see the letter and she was so distraught. When she did notice it she used a pair of tweezers to get the letter out of his arms without touching him again and we opened and read the little letter.

Sierra thought it was pretty amazing that this paper was white on one side and red on the other. 

"It has to be from the North Pole because this is magic paper... no one else but Santa could have this kind of paper" she says. 

So we went downstairs and wrote a letter to Santa asking for Elf Help just like Elfie requested we do. Sierra did a great job starting to write the letter as daddy told her how to spell the words (but then she got frustrated that he was paraphrasing her words and we had to cross some out and daddy finished her letter word for word from her).

We dropped it into the mail box as we walked to school. 

On the way home from school we stopped to get the mail and there was a parcel there from Santa!!! How's that for magical Airmail! I've never seen mail delivered so fast in ALL my life!

What can be in our Airmail?

Aayla was at daycare and we were going to wait to see what was inside until Aayla got home from daycare but Sierra was too excited so we took a little peak. Inside was a letter from Santa saying we needed to follow the instructions as soon as possible so Sierra and daddy got busy.

Sierra looking quite surprised as
daddy reads Santas note

(FYI I think Santa might have downloaded the patterns for this mail from HERE I saw it there and thought is was a super neat idea. I am so glad Santa used it even if it is a little different)

Opening up the package labelled as North Pole Fertilizer

Opening up the North Pole Potting Soil

Amazed to see the Peppermint Seed

Planting the Peppermint Seed

Adding the North Pole Fertilizer

Patting it all down

Happily waiting for the peppermint seed to grow

After setting the Peppermint seed safely on the counter we went about making our Day 14 Countdown to Christmas activity (but you can see that in the next post since this Elfie post is quite long).

Just before bedtime Sierra noticed our Peppermint seed had started to grow!!!

Here they are wishing for the seed to grow into a big candy cane so Elfie
can get back to the North Pole to regain all his magic and get strong enough
to return to us before Christmas this year.

So excited!!!

 Then it was off to bed with our peppermint seed growing and safely guarded for the night.

I sure hope that the girls wished hard enough and are sorry enough for a big candy cane to grow and Elfie can return to the North Pole to get better.

Scrabble tile teacher gift ornaments and homemade wrapping paper

Here are our countdown to Christmas activities for the last 2 days (since we failed to get anything done yesterday).

Day 12 Make teacher gifts
Day 13 Play games under the Christmas tree and make wrapping paper

Since we have been playing games in front of the tree almost everyday it didn't end up being a special activity today  but it did allow for more time to get caught up on making the teacher gifts as the girls did some colouring on the floor under the tree as I got all the supplies organized. When I saw THIS idea I knew it would be perfect!

Sierra's kindergarten teacher, her principal and her school worker will all get desk name plates.

Her librarian, music teacher and the second teacher in her class will get tree ornaments. Aayla's daycare teachers will all get the tree ornaments as well.

I think they turned out super cute and were very affordable to make. I bought a scrabble game at the thrift store (so I didn't have to use my vintage scrabble tiles that I am saving for who knows what).

From the one thrift store game I had enough scrabble tiles to make almost all the name plates and ornaments (11 in total) saying either a teacher's name, noel or peace. I only had to use about 6 vintage tiles so that was good!

My vintage stash of scrabble tiles :)

We used a full wooden tile holder for the name plates and cut some in half to make the ornaments. This was easily done with a small saw (thankfully I kept some of the holders from my vintage sets so I had enough).

Next the girls painted all the wooden tile holders with red, glitter paint to add a bit of sparkle.

 We set them aside to dry and then made the wrapping paper below while they dried. We placed them on a wire rack to dry so the paint wouldn't stick to the paper.

After they were dry we hot glued on the scrabble tile letters to spell the desired names or words. We also glued on some berry sprigs I had left over from last Christmas.

Originally I planned to add hangers to them all but I decided the teacher names would be better left as a name plate for their desks. The ornament hangers are just a loop of ribbon I got at Micheals from the $1 bin today and we hot glued them into place.

I have another gift for Mrs Gill I hope to get completed tomorrow if time permits.

We also made wrapping paper today so we can get these gifts wrapped and ready to take to school for the Christmas concert on Thursday.

Here are the two simple wrapping paper ideas we made:

Marble painted and twig painted
First put some red paint in a bowl with a small spoon and a marble. Roll the marble around in the bowl to give it a good coating of paint. Place a piece of paper inside of a box lid and roll the marble around. Scoop the marble out of the box and back into the bowl of paint to recoat the marble and then drop it back on the paper again and roll it around the box lid until you are happy with the coverage.

Next use a branch sprig with green paint and print the sprig onto the paper.

Cookie cutter paper
It is as simple as it sounds :) All you need to do is put some paint on plates, stamp a Christmas cookie cutter in the paint and then stamp it on the paper to make a print. Voila! That's all there is to it.

Both wrapping paper ideas are super easy and require little assistance and you should have all these supplies already at home :)

Here is how our gifts look all wrapped up and adorned with some red lace for ribbon and the gift tags we made last week (see that post HERE).

As for Elfie...since I missed yesterdays post here is where we found him yesterday morning...sitting in the blinds reading Christmas cards.

And this morning we found him in the bathtub boat. I hope it was an ice breaker so he didn't get stuck last night on his way back to the North Pole!

Candlelit bath play with Christmas carols and more Day 11 Countdown to Christmas

I had to change around a couple activities on our countdown to Christmas as we were supposed to go to the Peak of Christmas today but we (mainly me) just didn't have the energy for it today. We were out all day yesterday and I wanted some time at home :)

The girls both really enjoyed their bath. Normally Sierra prefers a shower but as soon as she saw me getting the coloured ice cubes ready for the bath and turning on the Christmas carols she was all in!

(Excuse the photos please...low light pics with just the candles coming up)

Like Sierra's lips? She has a bad habit of
getting into my colourstay lipstick!

Of course there is a tub full of coloured ice shapes...and yep
you guessed it, they both go for the same one!

They both quickly scurried around the tub collecting the coloured ice shapes before they melted. By the time I lit all the candles, they were gone :( Oh well I brought out some red and green tub paint and they had a blast covering almost every inch of the tub.

Then they had almost as much fun with a wash cloth and wiping the tub paint off and creating many bubbles as they did with the painting.

Normally Sierra doesn't get bubble baths because they irritate her skin...(she is so sensitive) but she got to today. We just popped her in the shower to rinse off all the soap afterwards. We will have to wait and see how she is tomorrow...fingers crossed!

Elfie this morning must have been tired from his journey the night before as we found him getting a piggy back ride from one of my Santas...I wonder if he went with him???

(To see how we made the poinsettias in the picture with Elfie please visit THIS post. 


The snowman candle holder was made by my eldest daughter (now 23) when she was about 5 or 6. I just love him! Missing you Meadow...wishing you were going to be home for Christmas!!!)