Entertaining a toddler on a dime: Enjoying Christmas crafts year-round

Whoops, so it's February. Baby #2 is five months old, and, well, we've been inside a LOT. Thankfully, I have a toddler who loves crafts and has a rather long attention span. I should have posted these project ideas while we were doing them before the holidays, but I'm going to fudge it and tell you what we did and how you can adapt it to enjoy any time of year.

I decided that to have a safe Christmas tree (and preserve my good ornaments), my toddler should make all of the ornaments this year, so we got busy making messes. However, these projects don't have to be constrained to the Christmas tree, especially now that we're looking at Valentine's day. With some simple modifications, you can enjoy these projects year round.

Salt dough ornaments

Nothing new here--80% of my Facebook feed in December was pictures of friends' kids making salt dough ornaments. But it's still fun. I've tried a few salt dough recipes, but this is the one that I like best:

1 cup (288 g) salt 

2 cups (125 g) all-purpose flour 

1 cup (8 oz) lukewarm water 

1 tablespoon (15 ml) vegetable oil (to make the dough easier to knead)

1 tablespoon (15 ml) lemon juice (to make the finished product harder) 

After we baked the ornaments (like, a week later), we painted them. During nap time, I took them outside and sprayed them with acrylic so they will last forever. On another day, we pom-pomed the bejesus out of these things. He told me where each pom-pom should go, I applied a dab of glue, and he applied the pom-pom. We went through a whole bag.