A Toddler Friendly Christmas - DIY Paper Garlands

Monday, November 4, 2013

Pre-Roman my sister in law would always tease me to enjoy all my house decorations now, because once I had a baby they would be long gone. I always thought no way would that ever be me. I am going to teach my baby not to touch anything.

Boy, was I wrong. Toddlers are nuts, especially my own. I can say no 100,000 times and he just laughs and keeps doing what he isn't supposed to. 

I could try to put up all my usual glass ornaments and delicate decorations then yell at Roman the whole Christmas season not to touch. Or I can avoid being the mean mom (we'll leave bad cop up to dad - he's better at it) and do a mini revamp to our decorations to make them a bit more toddler friendly. Nothing says Merry Christmas like broken glass ornaments and swallowed ornament hooks.

I know, I know, I COULD baby gate him away from the tree... But I love Christmas and want Roman to be able to share in the festivities and not from 10ft away. 

My first project, paper garlands....loads of them to make up for the lack of ornaments that will be on our tree this year. 

These are SO simple to make and very inexpensive.



I used several different size and shaped scrap booking paper punches. I have a ton of old scrapbook paper too. On this garland I used all 1.5" circles in white card stock. I used 100 circles to make an approximately 8' garland. All you need to do is punch them out then sew them on a sewing machine into a garland. Making 1 was a piece of cake, now I just need 4,828,284,828 more. 



Here is a little multicolor and multishaped one too... The possibilities are endless.



This is just the first of a whole list of toddler proof ornaments I plan on making this November for our tree. Surely, if your little one eats everything then paper may not be a good solution.... But Roman is getting out of the eat everything phase so hopefully we are safe. 

And as a festive send off, here is our normal, adult tree. I love billions of ornaments on the tree, much like a drag queen threw up all over it. Perfect. We usually get an ornament everywhere we go too so it's normally filled with lots of keepsakes, most of which are going to stay cozy in their boxes this year. 



No comments:

Post a Comment

 

Blog Design by Nudge Media Design | Powered by Blogger