Shower Curtain Ring Craft

 I am my youngest son's room mom this year. This was not my first time being in charge but for some reason this year has been more difficult than others. So, I was put in charge of coming up with Christmas party ideas and making sure they all came together. I tried REALLY hard not to panic and managed to get a couple of parents to help even. I ALMOST succeeded! lol. Let me elaborate... We had a cookie decorating station, a Christmas Bingo station, a snack station, and a wreath ornament/gift station. Bingo, snacks, and cookies went well! I had hoped the craft would have also- that it would be something simple that all first graders would have an easy time doing. I helped my son do a mock-up of the whole craft and timed him. 15 minutes seemed like it would be perfect! Or so I thought...

I never even imagined that I would have a hard time appropriately explaining how to wrap chenille stems around a shower curtain ring. Never. Go ahead, I dare you! Try to simply explain to a 6 or 7 year old, how to wrap the circle with the stem and keep it tight, how to scoot the stem around so that the ends aren't showing, how to find a good spot to put the pre-tied bow, find a grown up to hot glue the bow in place, how to attach the hanging loop, sign the pre-stamped tag, and then attach it to the bag- all while a room of 1st graders asks you for more supplies because they can't find theirs or needs more help wrapping because they only have 2 hands, or they need you to help them spell "grandma" for their tag or their clear bag disappeared, or they like "Johnnie's" better or can they just have mine because I have enough already... etc. You get my drift. I am thinking I may have overestimated my ability to manage a room full of first grade crafters. lol. 3rd grade, maybe, but 1st grader is a whole different ballgame. I should have stuck with those foamie shapes covered door hangers. Oh well, their "wreaths" turned out cute. I guess you could call them wreaths. Unfortunately, most of them just looked like random shower curtain rings with some fuzzy green stuff barely covering half of the circle, and a bow sitting at the bottom of a bag because they ran out of time to get it glued in place. hahahaha. Lesson learned. Know your audience. I just smiled calmly, (multiple times and chuckled to myself) and reminded them that Grandma/Daddy/Auntie/Brother would love and appreciate their effort. It was the least I could do. Good thing I am not a perfectionist or that would have been the end of me.