Glitter!

We had Thanksgiving at our house this year.  This is the first time we have ever hosted any holiday, the first time I've cooked a turkey and the first time we've had both families together. It was a big deal. 

As a kid, I never felt much excitement about Thanksgiving. I liked the turkey and the black olives my grandma set out, but not much else.  It seemed like Thanksgiving was about the food and so it wasn't really that big a deal to me.  I wanted to make this Thanksgiving as meaningful to the kids as it felt to me, so I set out to do just that.  We spent a lot of time talking about how wonderful it was that all the people we love best in the world were coming over for dinner and we needed to make the house look very special for them.  We worked on several decorating projects, but the hands down winner was: The Glitter Craft.  (Boy's name for it)

I love a project that has enough steps to stretch it out over a couple of days, and the glitter craft did just that.  We started at the park where we went on a pine cone hunt.   A couple of days later we went hunting for leaves.  When we were ready to get good and glittery, we spread out our craft tablecloth (although glitter got EVERYWHERE, so this was more for the glue) and went to work.  Usually I am not a stickler for certain brands, and if I can do it on the cheap, I will.  But for this craft, I will tell you it is worth it to get the good glitter.  I got the Martha Stewart glitter from Michael's and, yes, it was more expensive than your average jar of glitter, but it makes a big difference.  Besides, those boys used so much glitter, and there is still a lot left.  I think it'll last a while.

We watered down some glue and painted it on the pine cones, shook the glitter over them and Ta Da! glitter pine cones. The boys were so into them.  I think it was very gratifying to see something that they created look that beautiful right away.  Plus, they got to paint, they got to use glue and they got to shake shiny stuff all over the place; sounds like the perfect project to me.  They were so into it that when the pine cones were done, they were almost in tears, so we had to do the leaves.  I was planning on leaving these au natural, but they actually looked really pretty with glitter.  Then we glittered our leftover Halloween pumpkins.  It was a glitter fest. 

 

I definitely plan on doing this again for Christmas decorations.  Can't you see some silvery glittered pine cones?  Or white, or red, or pink?  I use a lot of pink in my Christmas decorations.  Whatever colors I choose, I know it will be another super fun craft.  And we'll have glitter from one end of the house to the other.