I Believe It's Called a Bait-and-Switch?

  The tricky thing about Christmas with a small child is that everything about the holidays is shiny and sparkly and so, so pretty....for a few weeks you pull out all this stuff that's all new to them because their memories don't extend back 12 months to last Christmas. So of course they want to manhandle everything in sight. That means broken decorations (or not bringing them out at all, sniff).

I thought it made sense to make something my kid could get her grubby paws all over without a problem. And maybe (though who am I kidding) that would keep her eyes off the other stuff: like the vintage glass balls found at a antique market in Winnipeg or the retro bubbling faux candles on our tree, for, example. (Who knows what that liquid is inside the little glass tube. All I know is it stains hardwood floors — badly. That can be good. Anyhow...)

I remembered seeing these little fabric stacking trees from the Small Object blog and thought they'd be perfect. Toddlers love building, stacking and then doing demo. Also: a great way to use up all the scraps I'm creating sewing up doll carriers for my Etsy shop lately.

  My plan, it worked. She plays with these things for, like, minutes at a time. Seriously: minutes.

 

 I'm not going to reinvent the wheel and tell you how to make these. Just follow the link if you care: The Small Object . There's even a PDF pattern you can easily download, though tracing a couple bowls and cutting each circle in half would be just as easy.