Unplugged - Wrapping Paper

This is my first Unplugged Project since sometime in October. My thoughts and actions of the last few months have been dominated by my sister's battle with cancer, and her subsequent passing on November 19th. I am also participating in a second blog to help family and friends share memories of my sister's incredible life...

But here we are back again, and it was an appropriate theme to welcome us back. My husband and I are reuse nuts, and let's just say that there's no shortage of used wrapping paper in the house...any time of year. With E being just 2, some of the more elaborate ideas I had fell by the wayside and we settled on a wrapping paper "quilt". In one of her alphabet books she is a bit obsessed with "Q is for quilt," so I figured she would be all in.

I used a ruler to cut an 8x8 square of white paper and to trace a grid of 2 inch squares on it. Then I cut out a bunch of 2 inch squares of different types of wrapping paper, and I further cut a few of them into triangles. After some searching, I found the glue sticks (right where they belonged, btw) and we were off.E thought it was a great idea, and followed my directions well. Her biggest challenge was fitting together the triangles, but I was impressed that she kept asking for "triangles, not squares, Mommy." In retrospect, I should have found some solid colors to break up the craziness, but it really is quite pretty. The next morning E found the finished product on the kitchen table and told me that she was going to "fix it." Luckily I intercepted the destruction and managed to hang it high on the fridge for safe keeping.
Then I decided to have some Unplugged Fun of my own, and I made some little presents for E's Playmobil Santa. She seems to love the tiny boxes that came with the set...so I printed out a box template and shrunk it on the copier (using scrap paper). Then I glued some wrapping paper to the back of the template and cut out both layers of paper. A few folds and some glue later, and voila, tiny box.When the kids get older, or when I have some time to try it myself, I will attempt the pretty wrapping paper stars on the Family Fun Magazine site. But for now, we are concentrating on projects that take 15 minutes or less. Thanks for the inspiration, Unplugged Momma!