Easy DIY Christmas Gift From Your Toddler is a guest post from Kaylee over at Mama & More.
I’m Kaylee– a mom, a wife, and our personal home-fixer-upper, which are three messy roles. I tend to choose realness and vulnerability over perfection, even when that means blurry pictures and clutter. I believe you can do much, more than you know, and I’m here to show you how.
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I’ve always enjoyed Christmas, but now that I have young kids just discovering the magic Christmas, it’s a thousand times better! Last year my daughter had just turned 2 so it was my first year to really enjoy festivities and it was a blast.
As Christmas day was approaching and I knew Braela (“Bray-la”) would be receiving A LOT of gifts, I didn’t want her to walk away from the season thinking it was all about her. I really wanted to start introducing the concept of giving.
But I mean, when I asked her about Christmas this year, did she say, “I can’t wait to give selflessly!” Well, no. She said, “I want a Rubble bulldozer!” Because the girl is all about Paw Patrol. But I know when we start making this year’s gift, she’s going to be familiar with the idea and it will only grow as she gets older.
So I went to Home Depot and bought 15 square white tiles for 16 cents–a total of $2.40 for gifts for 15 people. I reeeeeally wish my adult Christmas list had this kind of budget.
I already had a bunch of Sharpies at home from our move. Totally unnecessary for the move, by the way. First I wrote each person’s name on their coaster. I really wanted the names to look pretty, but most of them didn’t turn out that well. If you’re concerned about your handwriting, don’t be. No one is going to notice it in the end.
Then I COVERED my kitchen table in wax paper to protect it, laid out all the colored sharpies, and asked my daughter if she wanted to color. Honestly, at this age, she really didn’t care very much about coloring. She’s really more of a rough and tumble kind of girl 😉 But once she saw the Sharpies, that all changed. Can’t say I blame her.
I handed her one tile at a time and said, “This one says Aunt Hannah. What colors do you want to use for Aunt Hannah?” She would pick a few colors and do her little scribbles. Sometimes she would ask me to help her make a circle, square, heart, or smiley face–you know, the only shapes that really matter. 😉
It was perfect because each coaster gift was personally made from Braela. For example, Grandma’s coaster got about 4 more hearts than anyone else. There ain’t no way that’s a coincidence, my friends.
Since she was just 2 and we have 1,487 family members, we did this in parts. When she started getting bored we would just be done for a while.
This is what they looked like when she was done coloring them.
After all the coasters were done, I baked them in the oven. I’m pretty sure at the time I baked them at 250 for 30 minutes, but I’ve read so many different temperatures since then. I don’t think it makes a huge difference.
I used Rustoleum clear coat to seal them once they were cool. The final step was to cut small pieces of felt and hot glue them to the bottom. You could cut a square and cover the whole bottom, but I just cut five tiny pieces for each coaster and glued them in each corner and the middle.
That was it! On Christmas day, I handed Braela each coaster and told her which family member to take them to. I think she really loved having something to give… or maybe just the extra attention and praise. I guess I’ll never really know. 😉
This little project ended up being so much better than I ever intended… it was an educational and creative activity for Braela and it cost next to nothing! Time to start working on this year’s gift! 🙂
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