Toddler "Stained Glass" Angel Craft

I was very lucky to have my 20 month old nephew visiting this afternoon.  I have noticed even in the past few weeks that his interest in crafts and art activities has increased significantly, and of course I am happy to indulge his new interest.  Truth be told, it may be more likely that he is indulging my passion, but either way we got to work creating "stained glass" angel ornaments this afternoon.  These little ornaments look lovely hanging on a tree or in a window.

Contact paper is one of my favourite craft supplies to use with children three and under.  From a practical, adult perspective it is inexpensive (you can usually pick up a roll for a dollar at the dollar store), quick to set up, non-messy, and produces a durable, virtually laminated end product. More importantly, working with the sticky paper is a wonderful sensory and fine motor experience for the child. 

For this particular craft, I used lids to trace a large circle with a smaller circle inside it onto a sheet of black cardstock. After cutting out the large circle,  I used an angel cookie cutter to trace an angel shape inside the small circle.  After cutting around the angel shape, I placed it onto the sticky side of a piece of contact paper, and gave it to C. with an assortment of torn up tissue paper:

He had a lot of fun covering the sticky parts of the contact paper with the different colours of tissue, and it was a great opportunity to work on the names of the colours too.  Here's how it looked when he was done: 

While he went off to build towers with blocks, I stuck a second piece of contact paper to the back of his ornament, so that the ornament was sandwiched between the two sheets of contact paper.  I then trimmed it around the edges, punched a hole in the top, and threaded a ribbon through the hole to hang it:

Mom was thrilled with her gift when she came to pick him up!