August 25 - Rudy Day - Month of the elves

Starting today it's a whole month of Elf Magic at these 2 sites:

http://rudolphday.com/
http://magicalholidayhome.com/elves/

Our elves have been coming to our house the past few years. Jujubes & Mr. M. (see post of december 2009 for a pic of our elves).

My children are now 17 and 19 and they do enjoy them ... even if they roll their eyes and say 'ah mom' and shake their heads.

I've started collecting some ideas for when the elves will be here in December.

Joke
Who is the most famous singing elf? Elf Vis.

lol! I just might print this out and have them bring it for the teens :), I'm sure they'd enjoy that!

Craft

Pasta Christmas Elf

What you'll need:
1 jumbo shell (head)
1 manicotti pasta (body)
6 ziti pasta (arms and legs)
4 elbow macaroni (hands and feet)
Acrylic paint: flesh, green, red, white, pink, black
2 small wiggle eyes
1 mini pink pompom
1 small glittery white pompom
2 small glittery green pompoms
1 sheet white felt
8” green yarn
Hot glue gun
Paintbrush
Toothpick
White craft glue (step 9 only)
How to make it:
Paint the manicotti, four pieces of the ziti, and two elbow macaroni with green paint.
Paint the jumbo shell and the other two elbow macaroni with flesh colored paint.
Paint the remaining two pieces of ziti white (see image).
When the white ziti pieces are dry, paint red stripes on them and let them dry--these are the socks (see image).
Paint the top 1/3 of the jumbo shell with green paint to make the hat (see image).
Hot glue the head into one end of the manicotti body.
Cut a thin strip of white felt and glue it around the border of the hat line, where flesh paint meets green.
Glue the white glitter pom-pom to the top of the hat.
Glue on two wiggle eyes (use white craft glue for this step) and the mini pink pom-pom for the nose.
Dip a small paintbrush into pink paint and dab off most of the excess, your paintbrush should be fairly dry. Dab the dry pink paint on as cheeks (see image).
Cut two strips of white felt and glue around the top and bottom of the manicotti shell.
Glue two green pompoms onto the front of the manicotti shell.
Glue two of the green ziti just inside the bottom of the manicotti shell for the legs.
Glue the striped ziti socks onto the green legs (see image).
Glue green elbow macaroni to the striped socks.
Glue the two remaining green ziti to the sides of the manicotti body and then glue the flesh colored elbow macaroni on as hands.
Use a toothpick dipped in black paint to add a smile and eyebrows.
Glue a looped and knotted piece of yarn inside the back of the jumbo shell head.
Tips:
This is a very delicate project and could prove frustrating for smaller children. To include them, use felt for the arms and legs instead of the smaller pieces of pasta.
Always supervise children with hot glue. If hot glue gets on skin, remove it as quickly as possible to avoid burns.
If you prefer to use white glue, assemble the limbs separately where they can lay flat to dry. Attach them to the body afterward.

Source: http://crafts.kaboose.com/pasta-christmas-elf.html