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Craft products such as paint and finishes are easy to use, come in a variety of vibrant seasonal colors and can be used to turn any everyday item or garage sale find into a wonderful gift or holiday decoration. Craft, hardware, discount and home center stores all carry a variety of paints and other craft items.

Festive Fun At Your Fingertips
Here are holiday craft ideas that will help turn any home into a haven for the holidays.

Christmas Noisemaker
Put uncooked beans and popped popcorn into a clean, dry frozen-juice container. Place the metal lid on top and glue or tape securely. You can cover the juice container with red or green construction paper and decorate with markers or stickers.

Magnetic Christmas Tree

You will need:

You need some red and green construction paper.

Cut red and green strips of paper, three to four inches long and one-half inch wide.

Form a circle with a red strip and glue or staple the ends together.

Next take a green strip and loop it through the first circle, again glueing or stapling the ends together.

Do the same thing again but use a red strip this time.

Continue doing the same over and over (using alternating colors) until the chain is long enough to be used on your Christmas tree.

Cut out pictures from last year's Christmas cards or christmas-related pictures from magazines. Combine them with a special Christmas poem.

Paste the pictures and the Christmas poem on a big piece of red construction paper.

The construction paper can be pre-cut into a special christmas-themed shape or just decorated however you'd like.

If you'd rather make it look like a traditional xmas card, just fold the card and add the poem to the inside and then decorate as desired.

one-half c butter
two-thirds c brown sugar
one-half c molasses
1 egg
1 ts baking soda
1 ts cinnamon
2 & one-half c flour

Cream together the butter and brown sugar.

Mix in molasses, egg, baking soda, cinnamon, and flour.

Spread onto a cookie sheet to about one-half inch thickness.

Bake at 350 degress for about 10 minutes or until done (keep your eye on it).

When cool, cut into 6 rectangles.

Use icing to glue the house together.

Mix together 1/2 cup flour and 1/2 cup cold water in a small pot. Add 1 1/2 cups boiling water and heat on low until mixture starts to boil, stir constantly then cool completely.

Divide the mixture into as many portions as desired (a plastic egg carton is perfect for holding the divided-up mixture). Add different colors of food coloring to each mixture.

Create Christmas designs on paper using either your fingers (or by cutting christmas shapes out of sponges and dipping the sponges into the mixture)

Due to icy road conditions, classes in the Allamakee Community School District have been cancelled for today, Wednesday, January 12. Please drive carefully if you must venture out.