The big day...........

So, it has become an annual tradition for me. Like the lighting of the tree, or cookies for the big guy himself, Christmas doesn't get into full swing around here until the annual Kids Kingdom Santas Secret Workshop at our church.

Tonight marks year number 6. The workshop is an entire 2 hour period of crafting for all the little kids of our church and their friends. I set up 12 or so different crafting table stations and the kids get to shop the different crafts and select 5 or so that they would like to make to give as gifts. It's awesome. Not awesome like 'these are the best crafts every invented', but awesome to see all the little kids working so hard to enjoy the spirit of Christmas. Awesome like having them all sing happy birthday to baby Jesus. Awesome like seeing 30 kids or so wrap their 150ish homemade gifts in brightly colored paper. Really, it is a fun night.

The two weeks prior to tonight- chaos. Here's a picture of my kitchen a week or so ago.

It stayed like that- if not worse- until last night when we moved it all to the church. The counters were covered with Michael's bags and crafting items, the kitchen table transformed into a drying rack for all the small pre-glued items, and the floor covered with boxes of mason jars to be washed, plastic bottles to be taken and bags of necessary 'ingredients'. And daily, scraps of felt and bags of pipe cleaners were made into parts for their projects. It has (and is always) a hectic couple of weeks. My van has run circles back and forth from Michael's, The Dollar Tree and home (only because I suck at planning out a complete list prior to making purchases- I'll put that on my resolution list). But tonight- ahhhh tonight it will all be worth it.

So- because I am a complete freak and I apparently need something else to do with my time- I have started a kids crafting blog. Nothing earth shattering, mostly shoplifted ideas from websites and magazines, but since I already put the time and such into putting together kids crafts I thought it might be useful to someone else who is searching for things for little hands to make. Plus it gives me an excuse to stay on the computer a little longer in the mornings- thus avoiding laundry and housework.

But be warned- if you are a parent of a Kids Kingdomer- you just might be receiving these items as a present come December 25 so you might want to skip taking a look.

Just sayin'.