Recycled Christmas Ornament: Altoid Tin

I was recently given a craft assignment: to make a Christmas ornament using recycled materials. 

Okay, okay. It wasn't MY homework. It was my daughter's first grade homework assignment. Nevertheless, I was excited. After all, it specifically said the project was to be a collaborative effort between the student and his/her family!

Momo and I started brainstorming almost immediately. We searched Pinterest for ideas and pinned like crazy! When we finally narrowed down our choices.....we ended up with a Pinterest fail: 

Trust me. It is NOT supposed to look like that!


More brainstorming. We finally we came up with our own idea of using Altoid tins!

Luckily I have been saving the tins to make more of these:

....but it just hasn't happened yet. Of course being a bit of a craft hoarder I have tons of other supplies, such as bottle caps, fabric, felt, ribbon, etc. After playing around with what we had on hand we finally completed our ornament!

We covered the front of the Altoid tin with red felt and a Christmas bow to make it look like a present:

On the inside of the tin we covered both sides with felt/fabric; glued on some bottle caps; drew a face and buttons on the caps to look like a snowman; attached a gift label to one side and then added a ribbon for hanging!(Note to self: next time put the tag on the front of the tin, so it really looks like a present!) 

Imagine all the possible surprises you can hide in an Altoid tin!

It came out pretty cute and I know Momo is proud of OUR project! :)

If you are looking for more ideas on easy, kid-friendly recycled Christmas ornaments check out my Pinterest Board: "Recycled Christmas Ornaments."

Happy Christmas Crafting! 

We Have Worms!

It's a funny story. Kailani has been describing herself as "earth girl", "ocean girl", or "nature girl." Anything to the effect of saving the earth. So last month, for Kailani's birthday one of my dearest friends, Mari came up with the most unique present for her: WORMS!

I SAY unique but that is NOT what I was thinking when she presented them to her. As a matter of fact I thought I misheard her. WORMS? By no means am I a girlie-girl but I am also not a lover-of-slimy-creatures kind of mom either.

Why worms? Well, I didn't completely understand the process but here's the info taken from the Waikiki Worm Company's website:

Recycle with earthworms!

Waikiki Worm Co. was established to address the issue of recycling of organic waste, which makes up 34% of Oahu's wastestream. Annually, 50,000 tons of food waste alone is generated on Oahu. Processing organic waste with worms - called VERMICOMPOSTING - transforms garbage into a nutrient-rich, odorless, pathogen-free, organic soil amendment that dramatically enhances the health of houseplants, garden plants, fruit trees, landscaping, lawns, and agricultural crops. Worm poop, also called gardeners' gold or VERMICAST, recycles nutrients back to the soil as nature intended. Vermicast is easily produced and harvested from your own kitchen worm bin.

Hmmmmm. Yeah. I'm all for the three R's - "reduce, reuse, recycle" but not if grossness was a factor.

Mari was kind enough to walk us through the process of feeding them and caring for them. I have to admit, it looked easy enough. But while she handled the worms like a pro I was not ready to touch the little creatures with a 10 foot pole.

Guess who else wasn't ready? Miss Earth Girl, Kailani! But lucky for the both of us somebody else was:

Momo. Our hero! She thinks the worms are "SOOOOOOOO CUTE!" Seriously. The way she acts you would think they were puppies!

So it's hasn't been quite a month since we first started caring for the worms and things are actually going well. We've been feeding them, watching them grow, and even making mistakes (overfeeding) but they are STILL ALIVE! (Whew!) 

But I'm still not ready to touch them.

In all sincerity, "THANK YOU, Mari!"