I have changed the name of these wonderful little bookmarks, but just look at them and you will agree that the name fits. They are bookmarks that look as though the child is climbing up the book. Just too cute!

The idea is from Heather at the Creative Family Moments blog, but was published in the Family Fun Magazine, which is where I originally found them. I knew when I saw them that I had to do these as part of our Christmas gifts that the students can make theme.

Heather’s instructions for Awesome Homemade Bookmarks were very helpful.

I started by taking each child’s picture at the very start of co-op. I brought a rope with me as a prop, and Mitchell stood on a half wall to hold the rope as the children posed. I’m sure this was not necessary, but I did not have an example to show them, so I thought it might help them with their pose.

Here is my Alli is posing.

After I had taken a picture of all of the kids, I jumped in the car and headed for the nearest Walgreens to developed the pictures with their one-hour service.

When I returned the parents helped their children to complete the steps. I set Lizzie and Britany up as the “tassel station”, and they helped the kids learn how to make a tassel for their bookmark.

My little crew climbing up the kitchen door.

I love how they came out, and I can see how it would be easy to make a lot of these as Christmas gifts. You could have several of one picture printed out, and the kids could just cut out a few each evening, then make several tassels the next evening, and so on.

Another idea would be to use a picture of the cousins to make the bookmarks. They would never guess what you had in mind to do with it!

I hope you will try these little Climbing Kid Bookmarks. Kudos to Heather for dreaming them up! I think I might try her refrigerator magnets next! Super cute!

Check out the rest of the ideas I’ve collected for Christmas gifts the students can make.

We continued with our theme of Christmas gifts the students can make at our Charlotte Mason co-op yesterday, and it was a hit!

Crushed Ice Candles

I would highly recommend you make these.  They are easy and the kids feel like they have made something beautiful when they are done.

We followed some Ice Candle instructions, (which are gone now, unfortunately! I’ll include some new links at the bottom,) with just a few improvisations.

We used 12 oz paper coffee cups for our molds and “Vigil Candles” because they were a good height. (I bought a box of them at Hobby Lobby.) The instructions call for a cylindrical cardboard container such as a salt or oatmeal container, but I was doing this for a group of 35 kids! I did consider giving each parent a ziplock bag full of salt, but in the end I settled on these travel cups. I wonder if we could have used a toilet paper roll, without the toilet paper of course, and with one end covered with duct-tape?

I bought a 10 pound brick of paraffin wax at Hobby Lobby, (my Michael’s didn’t carry it,) but you can buy smaller packages if you would like. The 10 pound brick was $24.00, but I used a 40% off coupon. In the end the 10 pound brick filled about 30 – 12oz cups. (Yes I did say we had 35 kids, and we ended up running just a bit short. That was very disappointing!) Maybe knowing this information will help you to plan for how much you need. Also, more ice will make it go a little further.

A few more notes that might help:

The instructions call to use leftover crayon pieces to color the wax, but I bought a package of liquid candle color for about $3.50. 

We put ice cubes in a ziplock back, and then crushed them using a hammer. Maybe you have a crushed ice setting on your refrigerator.

We used old gallon size coffee cans as our “tin cans”. Remember that if you want to layer colors you will need several colors going at once.

The instructions I’ve linked to say you can peal off the cardboard after an hour, but I had read other instructions suggesting we wait until the next day.  I am not sure it matters, but waiting until the next day did add a lot of anticipation! My kids pulled the mold of as soon as they woke up this morning!

New instruction that are similar to what I followed.

Fancy Ice Candle Instructions – they use professional tools, which I did not use, but it’s valuable to read through the instructions because this is how I dyed my wax. I did not use a UV stabilizer.

Check out the rest of the ideas I’ve collected for Christmas gifts the students can make.