We Care to Share Christmas Gift and Craft Show

In that last few years we have held events to collect non-perishable food items for Hamilton food share. This year we are also collecting unwrapped toys for the CHML toy drive. This year we are holding two events, a Christmas gift and craft show during the day and a Concert and Dance during the night. Please come out and join us Dec. 17, 2011 in Hamilton and help us raise lots of food and toys for girls and boys in need. Christmas is a time to give, and enjoy time with friends and family. The Craft show has wonderful gifts and crafts, and is a wonderful opportunity to find just the right thing for the people on your Christmas list, though you will be tempted to pick up a few things for yourself. The concert and dance is a great time waiting to happen, have a fun night out and support Hamilton Food Share and CHML toy drive.

We Care to Share Christmas Gift and Craft Show:

Door fee, we are collecting non-perishable food for Hamilton Food Share and unwrapped toys for CHML at the door.

Location: ACCA Center

754 Barton St. East, Hamilton

Doors are open from 10 am to 5 pm

The Christmas gift and craft show will officially end at 5 pm however there will be a music concert/show that evening. Tickets for We Care to Share Christmas concert available at the Christmas Gift and Craft Show.

Vendors with crafts and unique gift items

1st Mount Albion Pathfinders and Ranger - Hand knitted items, fleece scarves, chocolate Mint Cookies, Christmas Crafts, Kernels Popcorn, Gifts in Jars, soup and baking, handmade Christmas cards and more.

Mar-Lee Enterprises Inc - Tarot readings, hand crafted dowsing rods, pendulums, angels, jewellery, books and calendars in support of the Erland Lee (museum) home.

Annabobanners – Unique hand puppets – www.annabobanners.com

Shelly Marinic - Scentsy and Avon

Jodie Davis/Sharon Laidlaw - jewellery, Pandora inspired key chains and jewellery.

Sharon Tousignant - handcrafted wood gift items and works of art, crochet.

Kynk Naturals - fair trade organic Shea Butter & other handcrafted personal care products.

Allie Kat Originals - Michelle of Allie Kat Originals designs and crates beautiful hand-crafted bridal jewellery that can be customized to enhance any bridal gown or coordinate with any style and colour of the wedding party and theme of the wedding. Michelle also designs fun, fancy and fashionable everyday fashion jewellery, perfect for every occasion. Allie Kat Originals are high quality at a very affordable price.

PeachieBeads - PeaschieBeads is a green company with jewellery designed and created to giving new life to unwanted jewellery. Very unique jewellery.

Karen Cooke - giftware, toys, games and handcrafted items.

Meghan Candler - Crocheted hats ranging from size newborn to adult as well as crocheted photo props.

Trendy Treatz - cupcakes, chocolate suckers

Kathy Mascola – photography

1 of a kind design – Vinyl Wall Talks, Stick Families Figures, Children Animal Magnets – Portraits on canvas by Tim’s photography.

Delroyoshen – Jewellery

K. Bass - unique scarves and jewellery

The Art of Tea and Tasseomancy - Amy Taylor Tea Leaf Reader, Tea Workshop Facilitator

Laura Elliot - Beaded Jewellery


So Dainty Creations - Jewellery, hair bands

Karina  - Fair Trade Chocolate
Jennofer Bramogam - Lighted Glass blocks, hot chocolate cones, chocolate arrangements

Elaine McIvor- Perfumes, I pad, hand knitted items and gift baskets

And many more vendors with wonderful gift and crafts.

Kim Gustafson – One of a Kind Jewellery, candle holders, unique stone & rhinestone mirrors

Natural alpaca – Handcrafted soaps & Alpaca fiber products - socks, sweaters, teddy bears and more

Karen Smith – native crafts, baby swaddling, blankets, it works wraps

Lori-Lee - Steriling Silver jewellery and handcrafted beaded jewellery

Having a Gift and Craft Show this Weekend, but will anyone show up to buy?

I have been looking at the store flyers that showed up in my mail box today. There are some really good deals that I wish I could take advantage of. Some of the stores are already giving 70 to 80% off this weekend. Not so unusual in the US but unheard of in Canada. Here the big sales are usually saved for Boxing Day, the day after Christmas. The sad part is it does not matter how great the deals are, I just don’t have the money. This has been the tightest Christmas in years, and I am not sure what I can do about it.

We are hosting the All I want for Christmas gift and craft show to benefit McMaster Children Hospital this weekend. Even though it is in a good location, Knights of Columbus Hall in Hamilton at 222 Queenston Rd, we are worried that no one will come to buy things. Why, because no one has the money to spend. We know that the vendors are great, we have a wonderful location and have done as much marketing as we can with our small budget. There are door prizes and a silent auction all to raise money for McMaster Children Hospital.

Admittedly we could have gone with a larger hall, and used all the vendors’ fees for advertizing once the hall fees were covered. Instead we chose to go with the smaller hall and limit the number of vendors we had. Why, just in case very few people show up. As it is we have twenty vendors and had to turn down just as many. We could have filled a huge hall. Vendors are desperate to get into as many shows as they can this year, even little ones that just started out this year.

I am hoping that things work out. We have lots of people show up, our vendors do well and we are able to raise lots of money for McMaster Children Hospital. My fear is that even if lots of people show up, they just don’t have the money to buy things.

A family tradition; Gingerbread house 2008

Someone once asked me what my favorite family tradition was and at the time I did not have one. Now I do. This is our third year of making Gingerbread something at Christmas time. We tend to do a mix of whatever kits the kids pick that year. However we do plan to start creating our own design’s, as the kids get older and more creative.

Every year we buy a gingerbread house and gingerbread train kit and then spend the good part of a day making them with our kids. This year our son picked the gingerbread house and our daughter picked the princes castle made with vanilla cookie.

Out of the box every thing comes, all the candy on plates and the icing bags all ready to go. So the fun part is getting everything to hold together. It did not work so well last year, but this year it was perfect.

Then Mom and Dad put the icing on and away the kids go, putting candy every place they can, including inside themselves, lol.

As always we have a lot of fun creating these, however I did notice that for every candy that went on the princess castle one went into our daughter. Can anyone say – sugar high! We went for a walk once we were done just to burn off all the candy our kids ate. They had way more then they are used to. I think the gingerbread house and princess castle look great.

Christmas craft to do with kids - egg carton bells for the tree

I always like making Christmas decorations with my children. Fist it is fun, second it gives us positive memories, and third it is usually less expensive then buying a bunch of decorations.

This year we had a lot of fun decorating plastic Christmas balls and other ornaments. However last year we made paper egg carton bells, and they look a lot better then expected on the tree. Trust me, I was worried when we were making them, but we had fun and that is what counted, and the kids remembered that they made them last year.

You will need:

Egg cartons. We used the paper ones but the Styrofoam ones might work just as well.
Scissors. We used plan ones but there are some cool shaped ones out there that could make interesting edges to your bells.
Paint and brushes. We used poster paint but almost any paint will do. Just find what is easy to clean up and does not take forever to dry.
Glue and glitter. We used glue and loose glitter last year. This year I invested in Glue glitter – glue that already has glitter in it. I found it easer to work with and clean up, but not as much fun for the kids as loose glitter.
Plastic string, ribbon or even pipe cleaners. This is to tie onto the bell and hang it off the tree.

You cut the egg carton into “bells”. You can clean the edges up for smooth looking bells or just cut the egg carton and leave the shape as is. It is all up to you and how quickly you want to give them to the kids to paint. If your kids are older and you have the funky edged scissors you may want to let them shape the bells.

I used the tips of the scissors to make two little holes or slices into the top of the bell that I will eventually put the string, ribbon or piping into. Then the kids get to paint their harts out. Once the painting is done we put them aside to dry. We actually spent several days painting, a little bit each day.

Once the bells are dry then you have fun with the glue and glitter. I put glue into little bowls and the kids used paintbrushes to put it on and then we held it over a bin and added glitter. We had several different colors of glitter, but eventually we had a bin of multi colored glitter. Some of the bells only have on color others multi colors.

Again we did this for a couple of days. We only did a few bells a day, it made it fun, but because we only did a few each day the kid’s attention was easy to keep. Once they became distracted or frustrated it was easy to stop and put things away until “tomorrow”. It also took all the pressure to finish what we started, or to get them all done by some deadline away. When the time was right we worked on them, and when other things were of more interest we left them alone.

The end result was worth the time and effort, and I am not just talking about how nice the bells look on the tree. The kids enjoyed it; it gave them an inexpensive way to create something special for Christmas. I put the plastic string into the bells, it was a task a little to difficult for a then 2 and 4 year old, but they got to put them up on the tree as I was quickly tying the string.

This is a fun project.

Toilet paper rolls, egg cartons, plastic bags and other valuable resources

Over the last few years we have all started to reduce, reuse and recycle. It is a part of our lives now. However one of the items most people don’t think to recycle is a toilet paper roll. They always seem to end up in the garbage. Who thinks to put them aside and then put into the recycle bin?

I have kept toilet paper rolls out of the garbage for years now. I use them in my papier-mâché art. I recycle newspapers, junk mail and toilet paper rolls into art and some crafts with the kids. It became such a habit to save the toilet paper rolls that even when I stopped working on my papier-mâché I was still saving them. I had this huge bag that I was not using and had no idea what to do with it. Then one day my son came home from preschool with TP binoculars he had made. Well suddenly my excess TP rolls had a home. I found myself taking bags of TP rolls to the school along with egg cartons, plastic bags, cereal boxes and other odds and ends to the preschool.

Now I have teachers stopping me and asking if I can bring in more TP rolls, egg cartons and cereal boxes for crafts and plastic bags to put kids clothing in when they have an accident. I never knew there was such a demand. I actually have to remember which class or teacher got the last bag of TP rolls. A bag will be used up in a day in one class room, so to be fair I try to rotate who gets the TP rolls each time.

So before you toss that TP roll in the garbage think about recycling it. I am sure that other preschools, daycares and some schools would love to get them for crafts. Same with egg cartons, cereal boxes, paper towel rolls, wrapping paper rolls, and plastic bags. Find out if there is a local school, daycare or preschool that will take them off your hands. You may be surprised to find out how valuable toilet paper rolls, egg cartons, plastic bags, and wrapping paper rolls are.