I read all three pages and left to go find you a link to my boys' snowmen that they make every year.....then I come back and it's 5 pages! You are already going to have a long list of ideas.
I'm making 4 baby afghans and 2 baby quilts to cover the 6 babies that are coming within the next 2 months. I'm making 2 sewing organizers for a couple Christmas parties. They fold up and you can take your little hand sewing tools and stuff in them. It's a free pattern from www.butterick.com.
You did mention in your original post you were looking for ideas for your kids to help. Here are a couple ideas.
Every year, until this year, we have made snowmen paperweights for the kids' teachers. This year, all of the teachers but one have already received a snowman from us within the last few years. So...this year we are making criss cross coasters. Each teacher will get a set either 4 or 6 each, we need to make sure how much fabric we have. The link came directly from a thread here.
http://www.allsorts.typepad.com/alls...ross_coas.html
It's easy enough that any of my kids (aged 6-9) can fold and cut and make them. All I do is the stitching. They love them and can't wait to try making them.
I looked all over for a link to the snowmen we make and cannot find it anywhere. The last 2 years we haven't even used the website because we had the directions memorized. There was a point in time that my oldest son had 4 different teachers for his various needs and he had to make one for EACH teacher EACH year. We've made a ton. They are super easy and super cheap to make.
Here are the directions:
Gatorade Bottle
Beans or rice
1 new white sock
Hot glue and gun
Pipe Cleaners of various colors
1 sheet of felt
google eyes
black buttons
Fill Gatorade bottle with beans or rice. Put sock over it to make your snowman. Glue open end of sock to bottom of bottle. Cut one 1/2 to 3/4" wide strip the length of your felt piece. This is the scarf. Take the remainder of the felt and fold into a triangle to make the hat. Wrap it around the top of the gatorade bottle to form the hat. Glue in place.
Glue on google eyes, small piece of orange pipe cleaner or an orange button for nose, and buttons for the chest. Then, to make arms, use 3 pieces of black pipe cleaner. Cut on in half and make it into a little hand shape. Glue to one end of long pipe cleaner. Glue the 2 arms to the back of the bottle and extend the arms.
You are all finished. In the end it will look like the snowman is trying to give whoever is holding it a hug. It's very cute and kid friendly. Doesn't take very long or a lot of materials. Google eyes, pipe cleaner, and felt are all pretty cheap.
Sorry this was so long...just couldn't find the darn link!