We are currently hooked on foam shapes over here. Not to mention a little someone has discovered that he loves using glue. I’ve typically used glue dots in most of our projects up to this point (or glue & a paintbrush) because I just could not fathom dealing with the sticky mess that would inevitably ensue from letting my rambunctious little Mr. loose with a bottle of glue. Recently I decided since the poor kid is 2, this Mama had to get over her hangups and let him have a chance to experience an actual bottle of glue. Not to mention I had a bottle of glitter glue that was calling my name.
I found some already cut foam tree shapes, but again, much like with our gingerbread men,you could easily make your own. I gathered up as many embellishments as I could find, buttons, pom poms, beads, gems, some glue & glitter glue and let the kiddos go to town. Mr. A even decided this project looked like fun and wanted in. Who doesn’t want to decorate a Christmas tree (foam or otherwise)? Mr. C enjoyed decorating our real Christmas tree so much that I loved how decorating these trees became an extension of that. We had lots of fun conversation about sparkle and ornaments and stars (aka: gems).
Much to my surprise C handled himself very well with the glue bottle though he needed a little “halt” as to when to cut off the glue stream every now and then. Oh how he loved squeezing that bottle though. Just look at that concentration.
Our little faux tree decorating session was a big hit and it kept him engaged much longer than I expected. I actually left the tray together and we’ve pulled it out a couple of times since then to decorate a few more gingerbread men and trees. The more C uses the glue bottle the better he is at not squeezing piles of it onto his project. In fact, by the end of our project time I was pleasantly surprised he had figured out how to put just the right amount of glue on the back of a little button. So, if you are a Mama fearful of a mess, there’s hope… though I must say a pile of glitter glue looks mighty pretty 😉
As for displaying our trees? I thought about turning them into ornaments (and they would have looked very pretty that way) but I decided to string them using tiny clothespin clips and hang them as garland along our art wall.
A big thank you to craftprojectideas.com for providing us with the glitter glue, white pom poms & gems that we used in this project.
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