Happy New Year

Ready or not here it comes.... The New Year is just around the corner! Are you ready for it? Make this New Year's Celebration the best yet with these fun crafts and activities.

Make your house sparkle with home-made New Year's Eve party decorations! Choose a colour scheme and go to town making matching accessories.

• Make fancy candles and candle holders to set up around the room.

• Instead of streamers, or along with streamers, use curling ribbon to make a room look extra fancy.

• You can also make paper chains!

• Fill balloons with confetti (use a funnel). You can pop these at midnight for some extra celebrating. Another fun idea is to write out 'fortunes' on small slips of paper and pop one into each balloon.

• Cut out coloured snowflakes or stars from construction paper, paint on some glue, sprinkle with glitter, and hang them around the room.

• Make beautiful flowers for a centre piece and decorations for other table tops!

• String small, white Christmas tree lights around the room.

• Make your own confetti by using a paper punch on construction paper. You can even buy paper punches in fancy shapes at craft stores.

• Make a festive piñata for a fun decoration or as a party game!

• Make a variety of colourful bell decorations to help you ring in the New Year!

After you deck the halls, try making some New Year's noisemakers; and, of course, no party would be complete without fun party favours.

• Happy New Year Horn

• New Year Candy Holder

• New Year Noise Maker

Here are a few more creative craft ideas to help you celebrate the New Year!

Edible Snowflakes Recipe

Ingredients:

• Tortillas

• Oil

Instructions:
Using the same technique as cutting out paper snowflakes, make snowflake shapes out of flour tortillas

Glittery Snowflake

Materials Needed:

• Laminate pouch

• Paper

• Fabric paint

• Glitter

Instructions:
Cut a snowflake out of paper. You can also cut one out of a magazine or print out a graphic from your computer. Make sure the snowflake can fit in the Laminate pouch

Put your snowflake inside the Laminate pouch.

Trace the outline of your snowflake on the outside of the pouch using the Fabric paint.

Sprinkle with glitter.

Set aside to dry.

Once the paint is dry, you can peel your paint snowflake off the pouch.

Makes a great window cling.

New Year Bell Craft

Materials Needed:

• Paper or Styrofoam Cup

• Pen or Pencil

• Tape

• Aluminium Foil

• 2 Pipe cleaners

• Small Jingle Bell (approx. 1 inch)

• Star Stickers (optional)

Instructions:
Using a pen or pencil, poke a small hole in the middle of the bottom of the cup.

Cut a piece of foil that is big enough to completely cover the outside of the cup and hang over the top and the bottom about 1 inch.

Gently wrap the foil around the cup and tape it in place.

Once you have the foil around the cup taped and in place, the foil hanging over the top side of the cup should be fold neatly inside and taped in place. The extra foil hanging over the bottom side of the cup should be left alone for the time being.

Next, string the bell onto one of the pipe cleaners, slide it to the middle, and fold the pipe cleaner in half. This pipe cleaner now needs to put inside the cup and you need to poke the ends through the hole you made earlier. Pull the ends up through the hole until the bell is at least 1 inch from the edge of the inside of the cup.

Take the other pipe cleaner and fold it in half. Wrap the two ends of this cleaner together so they are attached. Flatten the wrapped pieces down as close to the bottom of the cup as you can get them and tape them to hold them in place. Now, fold the foil hanging over the bottom of the cup down to cover the wrapped pieces of pipe cleaner and tape in place.

Your bell is now complete! You can decorate it with the star stickers if you like.

(If you don't have aluminium foil or for the younger Beaver Scouts , you can just use star stickers to decorate your cup!)

Happy New Year Horn

Materials Needed:

• Cardboard Paper Towel

• Wax Paper

• Rubber Band

• Pencil

Instructions:
Decorate the tube however you want. With a pencil, poke a few holes in the cardboard roll about 1 inch apart. Cut a 4 inch square of wax paper. Secure the wax paper over one end of the cardboard roll using the rubber band.

New Years Candy Holder

Materials Needed:

• Baby Food or Other Small Jar

• Glue

• Foil

• Gold Glitter

Instructions:
Carefully cut the number 2004 (or whatever year it is) out of foil. You want it small enough to wrap around the outside of the jar without over lapping at the ends.

Using a light layer of glue, attach your number cut-out to the jar. Let the glue dry. Once it is dry, dilute some glue using 1 part glue and 1 part water. Use a paintbrush and spread glue all over the outside of the jar. Sprinkle the wet glue with gold glitter.

Once this is dry, you have a festive candy or nut holder for your New Year's Eve gathering!

New Year Noise Maker

Materials Needed:

• 2 Paper Plates

• Crayons

• Dried Beans

• Stapler

• Craft Stick or lolly stick

• Tape

Instructions:
Decorate the paper plates how ever you want.

Put one paper plate on the table, with the right side up. Tape a craft stick to the rim of the plate leaving out part of the stick for a handle. Place the other paper plate on top of the first one, right side down. This will make a gap in the middle. Start stapling the edges together. Leave an opening to slide a handful of dried beans in. Finish stapling it shut.

Time Capsule Craft

Materials Needed:

• Coffee Can or a Large Jar

• Many Misc. Items

Instructions:
You are going to use the coffee can or a large bottle to make a time capsule to hide away. Use paint and/or construction paper to decorate the outside of the coffee can. You can try to make a special design... Confetti and a large 2004 would be fun, or how about fireworks, or a clock? One thing for sure you should include on the outside of your 'time capsule' is 2004 to commemorate the turn of the century. You probably will want to write a small note to whoever might find your time capsule. Something along the lines of "Do Not Open Until January 1st 2020 " or whatever year you choose.

Once you are done designing your Time Capsule, find some special items to place inside it. Some personal items such as a few pictures would be nice. You might also want to include items that are popular these days. How about a few Pokemon cards or a token of some other favourite. You can cut out a few important news stories also. Another fun idea is to record one of your favourite songs and place the tape in your time capsule. It would also be fun to write a letter to whoever finds and opens your time capsule. Tell them about yourself, your family, etc. Include a picture too, if you can. Can you come up with any other fun ideas?

Finally, once you have your time capsule filled, use glue or tape to 'seal' the top closed. Last of all, you need to find a safe hiding place for your time capsule. Hopefully a place where no one will find it for quite awhile. Talk to adults and see if they have any ideas. (We made one of these while we were remodelling our house. We sealed it in the new walls when they were put up!).

Colony Resolution Book

Resolutions -- those little promises that you make to yourself each year but don't necessarily keep. Here's a way to keep you and your colony on track with those promises.

What you need:

• A photo album or scrapbook.

• Resolution form (print one for each Beaver Scout).

What to do:

Using the resolution form, each Beaver Scout writes up his/her resolutions for the forthcoming year. Put this in the book along with photos or anything else that strikes their fancy from the past year. Check in every month or so to see how you're doing with your promises to yourself.