tennis shoes, sea coins, and lemonaders

the christmas crafting is almost done, and i am really proud of myself for not going overboard.  every project has been something that used materials we already had, and none of them took more than a day to finish.  i feel so virtuous which is a nice way to feel in this virtuous season.

i was invited to ella's preschool last week to tell them about christmas in the philippines and something that stuck with everybody, kids and teachers, was that one of the main gifts there is fruit.  so i was thinking on getting each of the teachers a papaya which was always my favorite but they are expensive here, then i thought of clementines which i like too but then at aldi's i saw pineapples for 99cents so i got one for each of the teachers and aides.  ella's lead teacher is extra wonderful so for her we splurged and got a chocolate reindeer.

however i thought it might be weird to just hand somebody a pineapple, so we also made bookmarks, using torn tissue paper which ella calls "tennis shoe paper", some sequins which she calls "sea coins", and the laminator which she calls the "lemonader".  this was really fun and i'm thinking we'll make some gift tags or suncatchers this way too.  i made tassels with yarn and tied the bookmarks around the pineapples, and with that we had instant festiveness.

   

this is a super easy project that even little kids can do:  just tear bits of tennis shoe paper and lay them inside the plastic lemonading pouch, add as many sea coins as you wish, then run the whole thing thru the lemonader.  when they have cooled, cut them into strips, punch a hole in one end, and tie on a tassel.  all done!

if you don't have a lemonader, you can do the same thing with clear contact paper.  i've also tried DIY lemonading, using ziptop bags and pressing them with a warm iron, this works but it is kind of tricky, you have to be vigilant or you will end up with a lemonaded ironing board. 

we delivered the pineapples today and everybody loved them!  ok, i did overhear one parent make a snarky remark about "fruity homemade gifts", so no pineapple for her.  :D