Chinese New Year...Kindergarten Style!

As you can imagine, our house was full of excitement prior to morning kindergarten.

Josie was very proud to wear her special outfit to school.

At circle time, we talked about the significance of the dragon and then Josie's classmates got busy decorating their masks.


After their masks were colored, the students posed for pictures.

Don't they make fabulous dragons!!

We then celebrated with a short Chinese New Year parade down the hallway, where we came back to the classroom and set off bubble wrapping firecrackers.

Josie then passed out her red envelopes and gold chocolate coins.

A fun time was had by all.
Happy Chinese New Year!

XOXO

♥

Gung hay fat choy!

Today marks the start of the Chinese New Year! We spent Sunday afternoon filling 24 red envelopes with gold chocolate coins to bring into Josie's classroom. I'll be joining her class the last hour of morning kindergarten to assist in our very own CNY celebration.


In case you are wondering, red is the color of happiness. Special envelopes (like these) are filled with a gift of money and are traditionally given to children (and unmarried adults) on Chinese New Year. In addition to sharing these special envelopes with Josie's classmates, we'll also be coloring dragon masks so that we can have our very own Chinese New Year's parade.

The dragon, represents strength and brings good luck. Every Chinese New Year's parade ends with a dragon.

source

The dragon has the eyes of a rabbit, the mouth of a camel, the antlers of a deer, the scales of a carp, the whiskers of a catfish, the talons of an eagle, the legs of a tiger, the ears of a cow and the body of a serpent. As the dragon passes by fireworks explode all around.

The old year ends with a roar as people celebrate the beginning of a new one.

As you can imagine, Josie is very excited about sharing her special holiday with her classmates. I'll be bringing the camera along and can't wait to capture our amazing celebration.

Happy Year of the Dragon!!

XOXO

♥

Princess for the night...

Josie's elementary school is having a daddy/daughter dance this evening.

Emma is my girly girl and Josie prefers play clothes over dresses. This afternoon was spent fussing with her hair and nails.

I love my two princesses.

XOXO

♥

Dolls from Around the World for Lil' Vintage Story Books Link Party

It's Friday and so it's time for another Lil' Vintage Story Books Link Party.

Today's book was purchased last weekend from an antique mall while I was in Traverse City.

It's titled The Surprise Doll written by (Morrell Gibson) and illustrated by (Steffie Lerch). Copyright 1949, by Wonder Books, Inc.

This sweet little book is beautifully illustrated and tells a story about little Mary, whose father is a sea captain.

Each time he returns from his travels abroad, he brings Mary a doll from a different country.

Mary has six dolls, but wants one for each day of the week. She decides to visit a toymaker and asks him to make her a seventh doll. The toymaker tells her she must leave her six dolls with him for a week while he works on her special doll.

When she returns, the toymaker surprises her with a doll that looks just like herself.

One of the reasons why I purchased the book was because of this precious China doll illustration.

I loved the graphic so much that I used it in making this chocolate Valentine box.

While growing up, I also had a special collection of dolls from around the world. They were given to me by my grandparents, as well as a family friend who owned a travel agency.

This doll collection is now in Emma's bedroom where it joins a few more special dolls acquired from my husband's trip to Russia and our trip to China.

Don't forgot to visit Corey Moortgat's blog for more great vintage books and illustrations.

Happy Friday!
Happy Playing!
Have a thrifty crafty weekend!

XOXO

♥

Lantern Crafts for Chinese New Year

With CNY preparations in full swing this week, today's post is going to focus on a bunch of different crafting ideas for creating Chinese lanterns. Last year, my adoptive blogging friend Cindy featured these fantastic Chinese New Year Lanterns out of red envelopes.

You can find detailed instructions here on her blog.

You can find red envelopes at Party City and Pier 1 right now. If you want to keep it simple, I've posted instructions for creating construction paper lanterns here on my blog. Josie has even been able to help me with this craft the last three years.

Instructions for making paper lanterns out of Styrofoam cups found here on Family Corner.

Another favorite lantern that we've made the last few years, is this glass lantern made of recycled glass jars, red tissue paper, stickers and other embellishments.

This craft was featured on my blog here and each year we've added another one to our growing collection.



A favorite blog that I've mentioned before (Let's go fly a Kite) posted this beautiful idea for creating lanterns out of thumb prints. Simply fabulous!!

She even sent us a Chinese newspaper (along with a colorful dragon and special Chinese envelopes) so that we could make our own artwork.

As you can imagine, Josie was eager to test out all her various paint colors on this project.

Based on advice from Let's go fly a Kite I used a sharpie marker to draw the lantern string/fringe.

I had so much fun with this craft, I even decorated a set of plain red greeting cards (found in the Target $1 bin) to make special CNY stationary.

Happy Crafting!

Happy soon-to-be Chinese New Year!