Combine your holiday card and your Christmas baby’s birth announcement this season! Economical and unique, this is a simple way to take care of both your card needs this year. For instance, you can use our Square Christmas Birth Announcement Photo Card design on one side of our recycled flat cardstock:

Then use our Square Red Festive Happy Holiday Card design for the cardstock back to include a family photo (we can customize the borders, colors, fonts & wording to coordinate): Read more

Continuing from our Christian Christmas Card Wording Ideas, here are more religious verse ideas – each wording suggestion is followed by one of our matching cards (feel free to look around in our photo Christmas card gallery, as any of these verses can be used on any of our designs, of course).

• “Wishing you a Joyous & Blessed Holiday Season…” (Chocolate Brown & Green Holiday Five Photo Card)
• “Rejoice, the Lord is King! May the Christ of Christmas bring joy to your heart and peace to your soul.” (Ivory & Gold Three Photo Christmas Card)
• “May His love shine brightly on you and yours during this Holiday season.” (Faith, Hope & Love Five Photo Christmas Card)
• “Blessed are those who see Christmas through the eyes of a child.” (Simply Blessed Christmas Photo Card)
• “May your Christmas be filled with Joy & Gratitude because of all that Christ has given you.” (Purple & Gold Christian Photo Holiday Card)
• “We wish you a Blessed Christmas and all the best in 2009!!” (Black, Red & Gold Blessings Photo Christmas Card)
• “May the peace and joy of Christmas be with you today and throughout the New Year.” (Peace & Joy Four Photo Christmas Card)
• “Wishing you the gift of faith, the blessing of hope and the peace of His love at Christmas and always.” (Artistic Photo Christmas Tree Card)
• “We wish you a Christmas filled with the wonder of the birth of Christ, the warmth of the Holiday spirit and the love of family and friends.” (Christian Snowflake Photo Merry Christmas Card)

We also recommend Isaiah 7:14, Matthew 2:1 and Luke 2:11, 13-14 for Scripture references on your Christian holiday cards. Have more ideas? Share them in comments below!

Looking for fresh wording inspiration this holiday season? Here are some of our recent favorites from our Christian Christmas card orders – each wording suggestion is followed by one of our matching cards (feel free to look around in our photo Christmas card gallery, as any of these verses can be used on any of our designs, of course).

• “May the timeless message of Christmas fill your heart and home with joy now and throughout the coming year.” (Three Wise Men Christmas Card)
• “The light of the Christmas star to you – The warmth of home and hearth to you – The cheer and good will of friends to you – The hope of a childlike heart to you – The joy of a thousand angels to you – The love of the Son and God’s peace to you. With Christmas love and New Year’s wishes,” (Colorful Blocks Multi-Photo Christmas Card)
• “Wishing you the Love, Peace & Happiness that the true meaning of Christmas brings.” (Victorian Christmas Card)
• “May your heart be lifted in praise this Christmas for the wonderful gift of Jesus and the joy He brings to our lives. Have a wonderful Christmas and a blessed New Year!” (Scrapbook Photo Christmas Card)
• “Glory to God in the Highest! May the blessings of God’s special gifts be yours this Christmas and in the New Year.” (Christian Tropical Photo Christmas Card)
• “We wish you a Christmas filled with the wonder of the birth of Christ.” (Silver Snowflake Christian Holiday Card)
• “Christmas… a special time of Worshiping Our King. May the blessing of knowing Christ enrich your life in the year 2010.” (Starry Blue & White Christmas Card)
• “May the miracle of Christmas fill your heart with joy and peace.” (Custom Colored Collage Photo Holiday Card)
• “From our family to yours, Merry Christmas and blessings for the New Year.” (Five Photo Vintage Family Holiday Card)
• “Joy to The World… In Christ Alone – Merry Christmas!” (Multi-Photo Christmas Greeting Card)
• “May you rejoice in the miracle, the gift and the promise of Christmas.” (Miracle of Christmas Photo Card)
• “The true joy of Christmas is in the everlasting love of Christ. Wishing you a joyous Christmas and  blessings in the coming New Year.” or another popular variation of this verse: “The true joy of Christmas is the love of Christ, shared with family and friends. May you find His peace, love and joy in the coming New Year.”(Elegant Christian Christmas Card Collage)

Also see our Religious Christmas Card Verse Wording post for more ideas, or share your own ideas in comments below!

This is a great craft idea for Christmas presents! Be sure to use fabric paint. It washes off hands and feet quite easily when wet…and peels off very easily from skin when dry, and it will make a permanent design on your sheet. Try squirting a spiral of the paint onto a paper plate and have the kids smear their hands around in it.

There are a couple of ways to do the reindeer’s head. First, you can use a footprint with the toes up and the heel where the nose will be placed. Do that footprint first … then do the handprint antlers slightly overlapping it (use both hands in doing the antlers … left for left, right for right). Second, just draw on a head for the reindeer using fabric paint – a fairly simple oval shape, colored in with the fabric paint. Then paint on the eyes and a nose (red, of course)

You can then draw a simple string of Christmas lights (bulbs of various colors) winding through the antlers if you wish.

Other cute holiday shirts to do are Christmas trees made out of upside down handprints .. a row of 3 handprints on the bottom, two in the middle, one on top. You could even draw on a star and ornaments (or use fingerprints for ornaments). Also, you can use an upside down handprint in white to be Santa’s face, with the fingers being his beard … draw on his eyes, nose, mustache, hat, etc. Or you can make a simple angel figure … just do a basic triangle for the body, a circle for the head and two handprints for the wings. You can obviously add more details if you want.

If you haven’t yet seen them, be sure to check out Toddler Gift Ideas – Part 1 and Toddler Gift Ideas – Part 2.

Now, our Stocking Stuffer ideas:

Learning Resources Backyard Bugs – just can’t have enough bugs to play with!

i-CAT Chill Clothing Accessories – add on to this or last year’s gift.

SpiderMan Football – good for smaller hands to hold on to with the web-like surface.

Mattel – Cars! Collector set – wrap the 8 separately for added Christmas morning fun or save a few for small gifts throughout the New Year.

Leapster Kids Carry It All Backpack – given all the planning Lil’ Duck does as to which toys will be coming along for play time at G’amma and G’ampa’s house, he needs a backpack (helps to limit the number, believe it or not!).

And, of course, we have to mention toy ducks, being LilDuckDuck.com! These cute, yellow numbered ducks have bath time and learning-to-count interest to us right now – Smart Splash Ducks. Have fun looking at all the additional “Make-You-Smile” yellow ducks as you scroll down the page! Stocking stuffer toys for sure.

Check back as we get ever closer to the holiday purchasing season for more ideas which will hopefully be helpful to you and your relatives in finding gifts with value: both play, learning and money value.

See you again soon,

Grandma Duck

If you haven’t yet seen Grandma Duck’s Toddler Gift Ideas – Part 1, be sure to check it out for more great gift ideas!

By now, Lil Duck has a selection of various little creatures and they are needing some new and exciting adventures as the play sets they came with have already seen multiple hours of play. Why not introduce a new “play set” for all these creatures to inspire imaginative play? Tree house play set definitely has my attention. As the customer review says, “It’s a lasting, creative, open-ended piece of childhood!” I remember our son playing for years with his small tree house and the delightful “adventures” his little creatures had – I really think this will be one of Lil Duck’s Christmas presents this year. Read more