Christmas Crafts...

Christmas Ornament        Advent Calendar    Paper Chains

Fuse beads ornaments   Pine Cone Ornament   Wreaths

Candy Cane Ornaments       Play dough Ornaments     

Construction Paper Christmas Tree     Paper Ornament

Hand Ornaments      Cone Shaped Ornaments    

Christmas Cards     Pine Cone Ornaments    

Christmas Gift bags    Wrapping Paper

Christmas Ornament

Cut 24 circles from the pictures on old Christmas cards. Fold the sides
inward to form a triangle shape (so you're looking down at the picture,
and have three sides sticking up)
Glue or staple these together at the folded-up sides - put six together with
the tops in the center for both the top and bottom of the circle, and the
other 12 go into a strip (a band, really) in which the tops of the triangles
alternately go up and down.
Kinda like this - _____________________
/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/
---------------------

Anyway, this band becomes the center of your ball - use the sides of the
triangle shapes to attach the top and bottom
You can decorate this, either with just a bit of spray-on glitter or get
fancy.
Another nice idea is to punch holes in the cards (instead of using glue or
staples) and crochet the pieces together




Advent Calendar

(from Baby Food Jars)
(25)
(23)(24)
(20)(21)(22)
(16)(17)(18)(19)
(11)(12)(13)(14)(15)
(05)(06)(07)(08)(09)(10)
(03)(04)
(01)(02)
A tree of 25 jars to fill with little trinkets and use as
an advent calendar.



Fuse beads ornaments

Arrange the little beads on the plastic board, then it needs to be pressed with an iron (by an adult, of course). I have been tying a string through the top bead in the design before pressing, so it's ready to hang. She followed a design on the package to make the first one.

Pine Cone Ornament

Take pine cones and paint the tips with glue (or to dip them into
the glue) then sprinkle glitter on them. You can tie yarn around one of the top tiers of the cone and hang them on the tree, or put a bunch into the big glass bowl and put plain round painted ornaments into it..

Paper Chains

Paper Chains - colored construction paper strips looped and glued
or stapled together. You could also decorate the strips before putting them together (markers, paints, glitter, stamps).

Candy Cane Ornaments

Candy Canes - made with a pipe cleaner and red and white tri-beads.
Alternate red/white beads over pipe cleaner to desired length. Snip excess pipe cleaner leaving a small amount to bend around to secure beads. Bend into candy cane shape. (You can find tri-beads at craft stores).

Play dough Ornaments

Roll out the dough and then cut it into all sorts of shapes with the
cutters. Then take some thin wire (pieces of paperclips would probably
work fairly well), formed little loops with it, and embedded the open ends
of the loops into the tops of the shapes. They then let the cut out shapes
dry for several days by just letting them sit out. (You could probably dry
them out quicker by putting them into a food dehydrator or an oven turned on low.) Once they were dry, they painted them with poster paints, model paints, markers, etc. The next step will be to dip them in some sort of a clear lacquer to preserve them, although that is probably not entirely necessary.


Wreaths

Go to a fabric/craft store and get pipe cleaners, and use 3 for each
wreath (white/red/green). Buy an assortment of little bells, and tiny moons and holiday-type small decorations with loops. Start the wreath by wrapping the 3 pipe cleaners together at one end, like this \|/,
then thread the goodies onto the pipe cleaners. Then twist them together, so the doodads hang down. twist the ends together and use a small piece of pipe cleaner  to wrap the juncture and be a hook.


Construction Paper Christmas Tree

Adult cuts out green Christmas-tree shape using construction paper. Adult cuts out lots of paper shapes, sized suitable for ornaments on the trees. Adult cuts out large yellow stars, suitable for tree-toppers (or use purchased star-shaped stickers). Each child chooses a tree, ornaments, and star, and uses glue or paste to attach ornaments to the tree.

Paper Ornament

Adult cuts out 2" circles of colored construction paper, and 4-inch lengths of ribbon or yarn. Child uses glue, colored shapes, stickers, glitter, or whatever else is available to decorate the circles, then use glue to attach a ribbon loop to the back of the ornament. If the kids are energetic enough, they could each decorate 2 circles, then glue them back-to-back with the ribbon-hanger sandwiched between. These hand-made ornaments can then be used as decorations at home.

Hand Ornaments

Trace the child's hand and cut out red and green felt hands. Glue them together so one side of the hand was green and the other red. Then decorate the hands with glitter, sequins, rick rack, etc. They make nice tree ornaments.

Cone Shaped Ornaments

Take a fan-shaped piece of paper, and fasten with tape down one side to make a cone (experiment to get the fan the right shape) Then take a piece of ribbon/thread/strip of paper, and use to make a loop for hanging on the tree. The cone will take a couple of small sweeties, or bubble baths, or other small gifts.

Christmas Cards

Sharpen some crayons and saved the shavings. Take the shavings and put them between wax paper and iron it enough just to melt the shavings. Fold a piece of construction paper in half. On the front cover cut out a star so that there was a hole on the front that looked like a star. Open it and tape the waxed paper shavings over the star hole. When held up to the light it kind of looks like stained glass. On the front write the scripture "And in the east they saw a star" On the inside, on the right the child can
draw a picture of whatever they want and sign it.

Pine Cone Ornaments

For a neat effect, take very large pinecones and put them in a bucket of
water. They will close up. Tie a piece of string or fish line to one end for
hanging purposes. Paper towel dry outside of cone. Spray with craft paints or glitter paint. When they are complete dry they will open up again and you'll have pinecones with tips that look like you hand painted them.
I guess you could do the same with little ones and just let them dry on wax paper or foil so the paint or glitter will not stick to the paper. Decorated pinecones make great outdoor decorations too.

Christmas Gift bags

Brown lunch sacks with Christmas stickers and red and green marker "art".

Wrapping Paper

A roll of plain white art paper cut into sheets and decorated with stamps, stickers, stencils, glitter or whatever. Handmade Christmas Cards
Another idea is to make handmade Christmas cards. You can cut out
stars or Santa's or trees from wrapping paper and allow the kids to paste them onto blank heavy paper (try a local stationer's) or you can give them
watercolors to paint inside a cookie cutter on a card, or stamps or sponges cut in various shapes. One fun idea is to help a kid with puff paint hold it over the card and spin the card on a lazy Susan squeezing the paint onto it. Wait a half hour and use another color. This works well with orange and brown and green in the fall or green and red or gold or silver at Christmas. Pinecone ornaments also work well--have the kids collect them, tie a thread around them to hang them and roll in Elmer's White Glue, then in glitter.

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