Christ Centered Crafts and Decorating for Christmas

This is our Advent wreath for this year. I know the candles aren't the traditional purple and pink, but I couldn't find them this year without running all over town and then spending a small fortune on a set. I have the colors in the table runner, so I'm not going to stress about having the "right" candles!

I added some twine to the gold ribbon, after removing the cardinals and red berries from last year. I like the juxtaposition between the earthy, humble twine and the shiny gold ribbon. It reminds me of the fact that my Lord and King humbled himself by becoming human and was born in a stable.

After scraping candle wax off the plate I use to set the wreath on, I decided to put some tin foil down to catch drips, and I thought it might help reflect some of the candle light.

I put down the Nativity table runner and put out our Christmas books. The kiddos are getting older, but I thought they might still want to look at them, and maybe they just might let me read one or two to them!

I wanted something Christmas-y for our living room art work. So using some scrap booking paper that I have had for a while, I put this together. I'm pretty pleased with it, even if my daughter thought it was a picture of a tipi at first glance!

A pocket chart about Advent. I realized that we have been celebrating Advent for a couple of years now, but I don't know as though I have really shared what it is all about with the kids. I purchased the pocket chart at the Dollar Tree. I just used scrap booking paper to make the candles and flames. the white strips came with the chart, so I just used those to write on. We'll attach the flames in correspondence to when we light the candles on out wreath. I'm going to add Scripture verses to go with each week's theme.

This morning after I finished baking and the kiddos had had a wonderful time playing together in the snow, they came in to hot cocoa and crafts!

This is a "Colors of Faith" Christmas tree. I've had the glittery foam trees for years, bought at Michael's when the value packs were 40% off. I purchased a package of  rhinestones at Jo Ann's to be used as "ornaments" on the trees. I just typed out what the colors represented. We used hot glue to attach the gems and a ribbon hanger.

I used a heart shaped cookie cutter to trace heart shapes onto red and white card stock. The kids used double stick tape to attach the hearts together and then added the candy cane sticker. I have to print out the "Legend of the Candy Cane" to go with these ornaments.

I admit to shamelessly copying this word for word from an ornament I saw in a catalog. It was a pre-made one, not one that you craft, so I used scrap booking paper to make this. The dark blue is actually a glittery paper, and the lighter blue is standard size card stock. I used Microsoft Word on my computer to type this up and used the clip art for the Baby Jesus picture. The star is a glittery foam sticker. I put 2 back to back over the twine hanger. Just a note, if you use the glittery card stock, you really need to use double stick tape to attach the other paper, a glue stick doesn't hold.

This year, after much inner debate, I finally decided to do a Jesse Tree again. Last year I printed out ornaments that we colored, and we used a poster tree. This year I used the same devotional so I knew what symbols to have and used Microsoft Word clip art for the ornaments. We'll hang them on a little evergreen tree that I have already. One of these days I would love to make some felt ornaments, but I just don't have the time (or energy!) for this year!

I hope that these gave you some ideas to use in your own homes, Friends! Have a lovely day.
Many Blessings,
Kelly