Danish woven heart baskets

I remember seeing these all over Nana's tree (and we had quite a few of them on ours, also) when I was little. They are really fun to make!  I'm linking these instructions because they are really awesome in English ("Do woven the strops inside and on the outside each other [not up, not down]"), but we were actually looking at a book we had for instructions. It's not that complicated once you get the hang of it. It's just like weaving (over, under, over, under) except you are putting the strips through each other as you go, because your strips are doubled. So it's more like "around, through, around, through." I know that doesn't make sense until you're doing it. If you really want to know how to make them, email me and I'll give better instructions! :) Anyway, both older boys were able to make them, Ky did it with lots of help, and even Daisy gave it a valiant effort (she constantly amazes me with her persistence and fine motor skills).

She had the different layers cut out, with strips in them, without any help from me. She just couldn't quite figure out the weaving part.

And she made this, too.

The Danes hang these on their Christmas trees, and then on Christmas Eve the children find them filled with candy and sweets. They eat the treats and then hang the hearts back on the tree! I think they are such cute little baskets. 

On an only sort-of-related note, one of my favorite things about the Danish Christmas is that they have a whole bunch of days of celebration---Juleaften is Christmas Eve, which is the day they open presents etc., but there's also Lille Juleaften (the day before Christmas Eve---a very useful designation which the children and I immediately adopted into our terminology) and then there's Christmas Day and "Second Christmas Day" (Dec 26th). Five days of Christmas! Not to mention Twelfth Night on January 5th. Fun!

Junie is cute

The hearts look so cute on the tree! And the children are greatly looking forward to finding some surprises in them on Christmas Eve.