| | For preschool aged kids during Christmas, I love making reindeer magnets out of close pins, plastic eyes and a ball for the red nose. These are great to hold Christmas made cards and hang them on the fridge! |
| | Countdown Chain - You need: Stapler and staples, marker or crayons, red and green construction paper, Scissors. Directions: Cut strips of paper out of the construction paper and decorate them, one for each of the days of December and a really good one for Christmas. Alternate between red and green paper strips. Place the strips in a stocking along with the stapler, and on the appropriate day attach the strips in a loop to one to another like a chain. On Christmas, you will have a beautiful chain to hang on your tree!!! |
| | Holiday Candles: Purchase green or red pillar candles to decorate for the holidays. Option 1 - Spread craft glue all around the candle. Roll in Epsom salts to give it a snow-covered effect. Option 2 - Spread craft glue all around the candle and wrap gold thread around it. |
| | Using milk rings and pipe cleaners to make snowmen |
| | Baby jar candle holders-- take colored tissue paper and glue it in layers on the jar. After it dries put a tea light in the jar. |
| | Peeler beads |
| | Making ornaments |
| | Making gingerbread houses |
| | Decorating bells to look like angels or Santa |
| | Making decorations involving family pictures |
| | Christmas Ornaments – get the clear glass bulbs and pour acrylic paint inside, then swirl around for a marbled look |
| | Decorate your own stockings |
| | Making wreaths |
| | Cutting out snowflakes from craft paper, any age as long as OK w/ scissors |
| | Stringing popcorn as garland; for kids 6 to 10 |
| | Christmas ornaments out of old Christmas cards or calendar photos - adults & kids |
| | Homemade Christmas garland made out of paper - snowflakes, snowmen, etc. strung on a string |
| | Bake cookies for children to decorate at Christmas. |
| | This Christmas I did a 25 days of Xmas countdown with my daughter. We did a different activity everyday to countdown and my 4 year old LOVED it! The first day we made a chain with 25 links to be ripped off every day. We adopted an angel for one day, shopped for the angel allowing my daughter to pick out everything, and then delivered the stuff to the donation center. We made a gingerbread house, sang Christmas songs, baked cookies, and made crafts to take to a retirement home. We watched Christmas movies, and had a dress up day where we dressed as ridiculously holiday as we could find. It was a lot of fun, and I can't wait to do it again! |
| | Christmas for children: trace ~10 copies of hands on green paper, 1 on brown, 1 on yellow. Arrange as Christmas tree with trunk and star on top. |
| | Build dreidels for kids in Hanukkah |
| | A great craft idea for adults or teens during Christmas time is "corn bags." Choose a pretty fabric and cut two squares about 6" by 6". Sew three sides of the squares together with fabric inside out. Turn fabric right side out and fill with cow's corn. Sew the remaining side closed. Make a pretty tag explaining how to use the corn bag - heat in microwave approximately 2 minutes and then use to soothe aches and pains. These make a great Christmas gift! |
| | CHRISTMAS WRAPPING PAPER: Carve designs or letters (in reverse) into potatoes for printing, and use brightly colored tempura paints for the printing process. You could use this concept to make wrapping paper. I work as a caregiver and one facility where I go to take care of someone was doing this project a few days ago. They also used a half of pepper and a half of orange, among other foods, to make prints with. |
| | Christmas Ornament Craft for teenagers and adults: small rubber bouncy balls, flat topped, long dressmakers pins. Seed beads, bugle beads and sequins (round and stars), and thin, Christmas colored ribbon. Cut the ribbon into a length of about 5 inches. Get the pin, first put on the seed bead, then a star sequin, then 3 bugle beads and finally a round sequin. Fold the piece of ribbon in half and put the pin through the ends. Push it, straight, into the rubber ball. Repeat, minus the ribbon, until the ball is completely covered by the round sequins. Use imagination with colors of the beads, the only thing that can't change is using round sequins on the bottom to cover the ball. Hang the ornament on the Christmas tree. |
| | Christmas card tray -- Using a lot of about 4" high boxes I'd gotten 24 cans of pop in, my husband cut handles in each end. Then the children decoupage torn pieces of red tissue paper all over the box. They each made a Christmas tree picture via cut and paste with construction paper, and we glued these in the middle of the bottom of the boxes. We gave them a couple more coats of Mod Podge, and they were really cute trays for parents to keep their Christmas cards in. |
| | Candy Cane Reindeer - You need candy canes, brown pipe cleaners (or you can use red), small googly eyes, small red pompoms, and glue. Simply glue the eyes and pompom nose onto the shorter end of the candy cane and then wrap the pipe cleaner around the bend, twist and bend each side into a zigzag style bending to look more like antlers. Put a small amount of glue under the pipe cleaner to help it stay in place better. |
| | Christmas pretzel wreaths-- melt chocolate or white almond bark. Dip four small pretzel twists in the chocolate. Place them next to each other in a circle so the chocolate touches. Sprinkle with red and green sprinkles. |
| | Kids, strings of fruit loops for the tree |
| | Angel Garland - To make each angel; place a cotton ball in the center of an 11-inch square of white fabric. Gather the fabric around the cotton ball and tie it with white string or yarn to form a head and gown. Trim the ends of the string close to the knot. Cut a 12-inch piece of yellow string or yarn for a belt and tie it around the angel's gown (be sure to leave sleeve openings large enough to thread ribbon through). Loop and tie another piece of yellow string into a halo and glue it to the back of the angel's head. Use the same method to make five more angels. Thread a 5-foot length of white ribbon through the sleeves of each angel. String beads or charms between the angels. Cut out a pair of yellow felt wings for each angel. Glue the wings (painted with glitter glue) to the backs of the angels. |
| | Charity gift-wrapping. Instead of a "little kid craft” do something like wrap gifts for a children's charity. Many people donate unwrapped gifts to charity and charities need volunteers to wrap them! |
| | Homemade ornaments - use baker’s dough, Christmas cookie cutters, non-toxic paint, small paintbrushes, and plenty of newspaper. Let the kids help make the dough and cut different shapes with the cookie cutters. Have an adult bake the cookies. When they are cooled, lay the newspaper on the table or better yet on an open floor (one that cleans up easily) and give the kids the cookies, paints and paintbrushes. |
| | Take candid pictures of kids while they are busy decorating the ornaments. Then print the pictures, trim the pictures, laminate and hang on tree. |
| | Pre-Christmas craft for adults: creating gift boxes from pre-cut cardboard boxes, which are then covered with suitable pieces of fabric. |