Easy Toddler Craft: Star Ornaments

Will's finished star from our playgroup craft!

Will goes to a playschool for a few hours two mornings a week, and he comes home with the cutest craft projects, singing new songs, and generally making me feel so grateful that he has the opportunity to attend and wistful that I don't do more singing and crafting with him at home! 

Of course I'm saving all of these forever.  How else are we going to decorate for his wedding or make sure his college dorm room doesn't have empty walls?  

Recently, he came home with a decorated star to hang on our tree - and was so proud to show it to Greg and I and hang it on the tree himself. 

The inspirational star ornament from playschool.
Thank you Miss Hillary!!!

I liked it so much that I wanted to make more with his playgroup friends when we hosted the week before Christmas.  Here's how we did it!

I went to a craft store and bought adhesive backed glitter foam, two sheets each of four different colors.  I unpeeled the adhesive lining and stuck the sheets of the same color together to make a big sheet that was glittery on both sides.  I then traced a star outline using marker, and cut out the stars with a craft knife.  If you're patient and don't have an exacto or craft knife, scissors would work instead - I used them to clean up the edges if I missed some of the marker, and it cut through fine.

I then hole punched one of the star points (actually Greg did this while I drank coffee.  Thanks Greg) and cut yarn scraps for the toddlers to thread through.  For decorations, I bought some self-adhering white dots, little red pom poms, and sequin stars.  All the craft supplies came to about $10 and I had enough to make at least 12 stars.  The same project could be done for less with plain felt or construction paper.

Using a coffee table tray was helpful - once the craft project was over, one of my friends just picked the whole thing up and dropped it on the counter before our toddlers sprinkled pompoms and glitter stars all over the floor for Andrew to eat.

"Will do it?"

We helped the kids thread the yarn through the hole punch on the star, and then they could peel and stick the little white dots themselves.  For the pom poms and sequin stars, it was easiest when we put dots of glue on their big star and they then pushed a decoration on top of the glue.  The whole craft project took less than ten minutes for them to do, which is about perfect for a two year old's attention span :)

Waiting for the glue to dry :)

Happy crafting!

PS -  I don't plan to keep ALL of Will's school projects forever... I'm keeping them in a box in our office until the end of the year, then we'll pull them all out, take a photograph, and ask him to pick some favorites to save forever.  In the meantime, they're a great resource for ideas for things I can start doing with him now that he's getting older and more interested in arts and crafts!

My mother knit him the adorable Santa vest!
http://www.ravelry.com/projects/PDamon/christmas-vests