There’s not really a Room Mom of the Year award. At least, there isn’t at my kid’s school. And if there were, I promise you I wouldn’t win it.
The only thing I’m going to win is a shiny trophy for cutting corners.
Because that’s what I’m best at. People don’t know that, though.
Every year (except last year, because I was overwhelmed and shirked most of my duties as co-room-parent, but thankfully my counterpart was kind enough to let me off the hook, and my son is oblivious, so he still thought I was doing everything for his class, making it a double-win for me) I come up with a craft for the class Christmas party, and every year people think the craft is soooo cute and so hard and complicated.
Y’all. I don’t do things if they’re hard.
My favorite path is the one of least resistance.
Saving myself time in any way I can is when I'm at my zone of genius.
There’s a line in the Beatle’s song “Day Tripper” - the opening line, in fact - where they say “Got a good reason for taking the easy way out.” Anyway, - and a lot of people don’t know this - but that line was actually written about me.
And my "good reason" is because I have other sh*t to do.
The craft I found for this year’s class party is super cute, and it’s also easier and faster to put together than it looks, which is one of my favorite things in life.
I found this one on the Creative Family Moments blog in her post titled, “Silly Fun Ornaments.” Here’s a picture of what the end product will look like:
The ornaments are based on an earlier post she wrote about making bookmarks with pictures of her kids to look like they’re repelling. So. dang. cute.
Here’s what you do:
Take a few pictures of your kid posing as if they’re climbing a rope. Have them make different faces - maybe in one, they’ll be looking up in surprise as if a rope is pulling them up. In another, have them looking at the camera with a surprised look, or laughing or whatever you think is cute.
Save the pictures to your computer in an easy-to-find folder or on your desktop.
Find the pictures and go through them to see which one(s) you want to use.
Now you’re going to add embellishments to the pictures - like Santa hats, etc., to make them Christmasy. I do this (the following link is an affiliate link, which means I’ll earn a small commission, at no additional cost to you, if you make a purchase using my link —>) in PicMonkey, because it’s suuuuuper easy to use.
Here’s the vid on how to do it using PicMonkey:
After you get them all decorated and printed out, cut around the edges of your kiddo and the embellishments you’ve added.
Next, glue (or use mini glue dots) the cutout to thick card stock paper (actually, I used old manilla file folders because they’re thicker than card stock, but not as thick as poster board, which would be a huge pain to cut.)
Once the glue has dried, cut around the ornament again (this is when you’ll begin to realize that this project is more of a time commitment than you’ve bargained for. Your hands will hurt and you’ll be cursing me. It’ll be worth it, I promise - plus, you’re almost done!)
Cut a length of some cute baker’s twine to make a loop for your ornament to hang from a tree branch, and cut it long enough that you can drape it down and wrap some around your kid’s legs, making it look like they’re climbing up the rope. Use hot glue or tiny glue dots to affix the twine to the photo.
Ohmygosh, this is going to make your kid so proud to have you as their room mom, or - if nothing else - it’ll make the other moms shoot you the stink-eye for making them look lame. #sorrynotsorry
Now you! If you try this, please share your finished product in the comments!
Also - before you do try doing this, please read the subsequent post about this craft here, in the article titled, “4 Lessons From Hosting A Classroom Party (or, How To Have Your Room Mom Of The Year Award Revoked).” Ugh.
