A night for clothespin nativity ornaments

So I have a pretty nice gig at my church.  I get to work with the Activity Days Girls.  They're all the girls in the congregation ages 8-11.  On the first and third Tuesday of every month we get together and play, usually doing a craft or learning a new talent.  Well, last night we decided to make some ornaments.  I had a bunch of supplies leftover from some Nativity ornaments I made as neighbor gifts a few years ago so we decided to give those a try.  And they're so simple it was perfect for the girls.



It was a total blast.  I planned to take some pictures of the ornament making process but since it was late and we were in a pretty dark room none of the pictures turned out very well.  So I decided to take some better pictures this morning.

These ornaments are so easy to put together.  It's pretty self explanatory, but I'll share the steps anyway.  First you need to gather the supplies:



(I got all these supplies - other than the glue gun and twine - in the wood craft isle at the craft store)
2 clothespins
1 star
Mushroom top (what are those things really called?)
Balsa wood strip (I bought the $.99 cent one at Joann and cut it into 1.5 in strips)
Ribbon or twine
Glue Gun

Now it's just a simple 4 step process:



1 - Glue the 2 clothespins together.
2 - Glue the pair of clothespins to the star.
3 - Glue the mushroom top to the balsa wood.
4 - Glue the balsa wood to the pair of clothespins.

And done!  Well, I guess there is one more step.  You should probably glue the ribbon/twine to the back if you plan on actually using it as an ornament :).

The girls loved putting them together and getting to use the glue guns on their own (under close supervision, don't worry).  Since it was so quick and easy we had a little time at the end to decorate some gingerbread houses.  That inevitably lead to squeezing frosting directly into their mouths and sneaking the candy to eat rather than decorate.  So all in all I'd say it was a pretty fantastic night.