New Year's Wishing Wand Craft • Capturing Parenthood

“To accomplish great things, we must not only act, but also dream; not only plan, but also believe.”

– Anatole France

Are you ready to ring in the new year? I still can’t believe that we will bid 2018 farewell in just a few short days. And while I’m not one for making traditional New Year’s resolutions, I’ve found myself looking ahead these past few weeks…thinking of some things that I would like to accomplish next year…new things that I would like to try…or some things that I would like to do differently. One of my goals for 2019 is to get back into reading more books (and not the children’s variety – I read plenty of those on a daily basis). 🙂 I would also love the opportunity to travel and explore a place that I have yet to visit! As I sat back to ponder the things that I’m wishing for in the new year, I began wondering what wishes our little nugget might make for 2019. As it turns out, she has quite a few…so we wrote them all down and turned them into a New Year’s Wishing Wand!

Our daughter loves princesses (and the color purple), so she was ecstatic about creating a magical wishing wand of her very own. We gathered up all of our purple-hued supplies and then sat down to talk about goals, wishes, and resolutions. Most people like to reflect during the holiday season…while also dreaming up possibilities for the coming year. It’s a great time to reset and develop new goals for the future…though we find it important to set various goals throughout the year.

Once we had established the definition of a goal, I asked our little nugget if she had any particular goals and/or wishes for the coming year. Her answers flowed freely: to take karate and ballet classes, learn to ride a pedal bike (she’s been using a Strider bike for a couple of years now), go to Kindergarten, have sleep-overs at Grandma’s house, travel to Washington (state) and Disneyland, and visit the local aquarium.

New Year’s Wishing Wand Craft

Supplies:

Construction Paper or Card Stock (in the color of your choosing)
Contact Paper
Glitter/Sequins/Craft Jewels/Etc.
Paper Straw
Scissors
Pen/Marker

Instructions:

You want to start by cutting out the star for your wand. The easiest way to do this is to cut a large circle from your construction paper or card stock (we traced around a cereal bowl to get a uniform circle).
Fold your circle in half. Then, fold the halved circle into thirds, so that you end up with a triangle.
Cutting diagonally, cut a segment from the base of your folded triangle (as seen in the center picture above). You want to end up with an airplane/jet shape.
Unfold the triangle to reveal your beautiful 6-point star.
You only want to use the border of the star, so that you can decorate the center with glitter and sequins – to make everything really sparkle. To cut out the border, fold the star in half and leaving approximately 1/4″ of the paper/border, cut out the center of the star.
Now it’s time to grab a pen (or marker) to add your kiddos’ goals and/or wishes for the coming year. Feel free to write on both sides of the star border.
Peel off the protective backing from a square of contact paper and place your star border onto the sticky paper, pressing firmly to adhere.
Cut around the edges of the star to remove an excess contact paper. The center of your star should now be sticky.
Decorate the center with glitter, sequins, jewels – or any flat embellishments that your heart desires.
Once you’re satisfied with your wand decorations and design, flatten one end of your paper straw. Place the flattened section of paper straw at the base of your star.
Peel the protective backing from another square of contact paper and stick down on top of the star, pressing firmly to adhere. The contact paper should now contain all of the glitter and decorations, as well as hold your straw in place.
Once again, cut around the edges of the star (and straw) to remove any excess contact paper. Ta Da!

I stumbled across this New Year’s craft idea over on Pinterest…which ultimately led me to a tutorial on the BabyCentre Blog. If your kiddos are anything like mine…they will absolutely love making their very own New Year’s Wishing Wands…all while dreaming about the many possibilities that the next year might bring!