Christmas Gifts For Classmates

We've been busy little bees making Christmas gifts for Maddie's 1st grade classmates.  These were simple to make and we had a good time making them together.  

Here's what you'll need:

wooden stars (or any shape really, just as long as the initial will fit on it)

paint

brushes

glitter paint

ribbon

jingle bells

stencil

stencil brush

varnish

paint pen

parchment or waxed paper

larger needle that ribbon will fit through (not necessary but makes life easier)

I bought the little wooden stars at Joann's.  They were plain wood and had a red ribbon tied on them so you could hang them on the tree.  We painted the boys' stars green and the girls' stars red.  Oh, and by the way, you might want to use parchment paper or waxed paper to protect your table - I used newspaper and that was not a good idea because the stars stuck to it and it wasn't pretty.  

Each star got two coats of paint - of course, let each coat dry fully before you apply the next coat.  We put one coat of the glitter paint on each star.  After they were completely dry, I removed the ribbon that the star originally came with because there was paint all over them.

Next I took the stencil and stenciled the initial of all of Maddie's classmates on the stars.  Then I flipped the stars over and wrote Merry Christmas 2012 on the back and Maddie wrote her name on each star.  Then I applied a coat of varnish to both sides of the star - making sure not to fill in the hole where the ribbon goes.  Cut some ribbon and thread a couple of jingle bells and the star and then tie a knot.  I took another piece of ribbon and tied a bow around the jingle bells so they'd stay in place and not flip over on the backside.

I think they turned out pretty cute.  And the total cost for everything including the paint and brushes was less than $25 - can't beat that!