Kids' Advent Wreath

 

I decided to link up with Centsational Girl's Christmas Craft linky. If you are visiting from there welcome :)

On Friday as I was browsing how to make a typical Advent wreath I saw an interesting picture of a kid's Advent wreath with very little explanation as to how to actually make it. So I attempted this yesterday with Sam (and Rachel. And Dave.) and we succeeded. For those of you who aren't crafty (me!) and rely on step by step detailed instructions and pictures (and for me to remember how to do this for next year!) here's how we did it.

Start with one paper plate, three pieces of green construction paper, a red (or purple) sheet, some pink, some white (not pictured) and some yellow.

Trace your child's hand on the green construction paper. I managed to fold the paper in thirds, and then in half and get six of Sam's hands out of one sheet. Just fit as many of your kids' hand on a sheet as you can. We did twelve total of Sam's hands and six of Rachel's.

Also cut a circle out of the middle of your paper plate. The original picture did not have a Christ candle in their Advent wreath but I grew up with having a white Christ candle which was lit on Christmas Day so I decided to make one for the kids' wreath as well. That's what the line jutting out into the middle is for.
 
Let your three year old play with scissors while you cover the edge of the paper plate with green construction paper. I only did this step because Sam and Rachel's hands are small and so there was a lot of red showing through when I placed their hands on the edge of the cutout circle. If your kids have bigger hands you can probably skip this step. I also covered the line in the middle with green construction paper.
Start gluing the hands onto the plate with the straight edge of the hand lining up with the cut edge of the plate. Belatedly lay down newspaper after your child gets glue everywhere! You can likely skip this step if your child is older than five :)

Continue gluing on your own while your child gets bored and plays with scissors again. I put Sam's hands down first and then layered with Rachel's hands as extra filler.

Cut the pink, red (or purple), and also some white construction paper into squares. Note: I grew up with Advent wreaths having three purple, one pink and one white candle in them. However I could not find a purple candle at any of the (two) stores I went to and I was running out of time so I used three red ones instead. Also the package of construction paper we bought came with eight different colours but none of them were purple. So, as my mom does and our Sunday School program did, we substituted red candles for purple ones. The important thing to me was that Sam and Rachel's wreath look as much like the grown up one as possible.

Roll the squares into a cylinder shape and tape them shut. Or if you're us, glue them first then tape them because the glue didn't hold. But you could likely just skip the glue.

 

Throw your hands up in frustration as to how you are attaching the candles, hand some Scotch tape to your husband and tell him to figure it out! Be grateful when he does :)

Admire your finished Advent wreath. Also, cut five flame-like things out of the yellow paper and tape them on each week to "light" the candles. We did our first Advent candles tonight, singing the song the kids used in Sunday School and Sam was totally excited about it. And the flame for the kids' wreath burns all the time, unlike ours. (You can see a really tiny yellow flame on the left-most paper candle.) Also, as you can see, Sam added Rachel's campfire from her toy yesterday to our Advent wreath corner. This was a fun project (and easy, just time consuming) to make and I like how Rachel was able to participate too.