Christmas Swag

On Saturday, I took the kids to the Anita B Gorman Discovery Center to make some FREE Christmas decorations. We each got to make our own Christmas Swag out of native plants. We used Bluestem prairie grass, evergreen, sumac, milk thistle, pine cones, leaves, acorns and other dried plants. It was so much fun! The kids and I agreed that this was their best event ever...although Lucas still prefers the dug out boats we made this past summer. Our family made 5 of these beauties and all of them have been given away as Christmas gifts. Eli made his for his mother, Noah made his for one of his Uncles, Lucas made his for our great neighbors, Autumn made hers for her mother and I made mine for my mother. Everyone got their gifts this weekend while the evergreen was still fresh and aromatic. :) Have I mentioned how much I LOVE the discovery center? It is awesome, free and educational! I just love it!

Autumn and Eli jumped right in on the swags while Lucas, Noah and I made leaf print cards on a printing press.

Noah worked really hard on his swag to get it just right. When we were deciding who we would be giving them to, he chose a family member who he heard wasn't having much of a Christmas. He wanted to be sure they had a nice Christmas decoration for their house.

This table smelled so good...

Hard at work designing their decoration and then using the hot glue gun...by themselves...except for Lucas...Sissy and I both helped him with the glue.

The center provided hot chocolate and cider while we worked and the kids loved that. Here are our final products...didn't they do a great job?

This is a close up of mine. Autumn is holding mine in the above photo in her right hand. None of us had ever made one of these before and it was really a lot of fun. I was pleasantly surprised.

If you are one of the lucky ones who received these you should know that the kids put a lot of time, love, patience and work into these swags. They were so excited to give them to you and we all hope you enjoy them! Merry Christmas!