Christmas is a great time for arts and crafts, bundled up warm inside while the weather rages or the snow falls – or sheltered from the sun, depending on which part of the world you are! Whether you’re creating handmade gifts for friends and family, or simply filling those holidays until Christmas arrives, crafts are a great way to keep kids occupied while having fun too.
Here are ten great seasonal arts and crafts ideas that will have your little ones entertained right up to Christmas!
1. Wrapping Paper
There are lots of ways to make unique wrapping paper – potato prints can be used as ink stamps, or you can press paper on to food dye swirled in shaving cream, or use gold pens to draw a single holly leaf, or Christmas tree motif on some plain, parcel paper.
2. Christmas Cards
Like wrapping paper, Christmas cards are a crowd-pleaser and easy to make, so get out the glue and glitter, and get crafting. Recycle last year’s cards, use some family pictures, or just let our imagination run wild!
3. Tree Decorations
Thread beads on to pipe cleaners and bend into a complete circle for a very easy but eye-catching tree ornament that even young children can try.
4. Advent Calendar
For a slightly different take on a traditional Advent Calendar, get your child to decorate 25 numbered, baby-sized socks – they could glue on fabric scraps, or use fabric pens if you prefer – and hang them around the house with a secret note or small gift hidden inside each one for each morning of December until Christmas.
5. Scent of the Season
Help your kids (or do it yourself!) to sew small pouches of seasonal spices – the kind you might find in mulled wine kits, for instance – and hang these among your Christmas decorations to fragrance your house for the holidays, or even send to friends and family along with our homemade cards.
6. Build a Snowman
It’s easy to forget that snowman-building is an art and a craft in its own right, but if the snow’s a no-show, build a snowman using pompoms or papier mache formed around two different sized balloons.
7. Christmas Candles
One for the older kids or for adults-only, but you can buy candle kits from arts and crafts shops and make your own colorful candles – you can even add essential oils to the molten wax as it cools for a scented candle. A four-layered candle is a good substitute for an Advent Calendar, with a different layer to burn each week of Advent, and it’s a lovely tradition too.
8. Mince Pies
Help your kids to make mince pies – you can use ready-made pastry if your baking skills aren’t so great, or even cheat by loading mincemeat into cooked vol au vents or ready-made mini tartlet cases instead.
9. Christmas Stockings
If your kids did well with the mini-sock Advent Calendar, ‘promote’ them to the real thing, decorating an oversized felt sock or sack for Santa to fill on Christmas Eve.
10. Gift Tags
Finally, combine the Christmas card and wrapping paper techniques to make matching gift tags – flat or folded, it’s up to you. You could copy photos of your kids and cut around their faces for an even more personalized tag for family and friends.
These are just ten great arts and crafts tips to get you started for Christmas, but if you want to let your kids explore their creative side without limitations, you could just set a table with a range of different arts and crafts supplies and see what they come up with!
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