Christmas Castle

Lately, my stay at home mom brain has been swirling with thoughts of homemade Christmas presents for my kiddos.  I realized that I never posted about Charm's Christmas 2013 present from Lucky and me, and in the spirit of catching up (a la birthday party posts:)), here it is:

If it looks very similar to this castle, it's because it was my inspiration of sorts.  I found the unfinished castle at Michael's for $12 with a coupon, and I thought, I can paint that and save some money:).  It's funny now, because after buying action figures for the castle, I think I maybe saved $10, and painting it front, back and sides wasn't exactly a quick project.  Ah well.  I used acrylic paint and then sealed it with AFM Safecoat Acrylacq.

Lucky and I made this very homemade looking dragon puppet from scratch.  We didn't use a pattern or anything, we just went for it using fabric we had on hand already!  We thought Charm could use the puppet and castle together.

After we gifted the castle and puppet to Charm, we had him draw up some shields to put on the front door like a coat of arms.  I made a couple too.  We laminated the shields and attached them with some velcro stick dots, so they can be changed out.

Even though, this gift wasn't a big 'money saver', it still is a keeper!  Charm plays with it often, and we all love knowing we made it together.

Now, it's time to see about crafting presents for three kids this year!  I'm thinking about giving them all the same thing, but we will see if my mind changes in the next couple months.  Crazy to think that Christmas is only 2 1/2 months away.  This year has flown!

Have a wonderful weekend!