HomeschoolChristian's
Christmas Section

Christmas Crafts

As you go about your busy holiday schedule, make sure to take some time to get in the Christmas spirit with your children by doing a craft or two. In addition, almost any craft can double as a gift! Here are a few that were suggested by members of the HomeschoolChristian message boards:

Welcome mats: Buy old carpet samples from Home Depot type stores. Use masking tape to tape off stripes or squares, then paint using a sponge and acrylic paint. Remove the tape, and you have a great mat. Even a 3 yo can paint this.

T-shirts, canvas bags, etc. I bought iron-on transfer crayons at the craft store. The kids colored pictures (using nice, dark, bright colors). Iron the pictures onto pillowcases, canvas bags, etc. Remember words need to be backwards to iron on properly. Grandparents loved this. You can buy kits to make plates and mugs this way, too. See the craft store.

Stepping stones: Use a throw-away metal baking pan, some cement or plaster-of-paris. Mix it up and place in the pan. Add hand prints, fancy rocks, shells, broken tiles, etc. Let it dry, and you have a work of art.

Cinnamon ornaments - like salt dough, but made mainly of cinnamon and applesauce, and smell great! You can paint them when they dry. Do a web search for a recipe.

Paper mache shapes or boxes from the craft store - usually a dull, brown color. Use thin wrapping paper or paper napkins (separate and use only the patterned layer). Tear into small pieces and adhere with Modge Podge. Paint the Modge Podge on, stick on the paper, paint again to adhere and provide a shiny covering. Use a Christmas tree shape, or just decorate a box with Christmas pattern. Yes, even a 3 yo can do this (my 3 yo won a Best of Show prize at the County Fair decorating a paper mache rabbit like this. Super simple, and you can't mess it up.)

Paint flower pots: Yes, the cheap, basic red clay pots. Use sponge shapes (buy them or cut your own.) Paint on a base coat (perhaps white)and you may need two coats to cover the pot well. Then use a sponge shape (Christmas tree perhaps) dipped in green paint and gently press on all over the pot. Spray with a spray varnish after it is dry. Other ideas: flower sponge shapes, or one of my favorites: paint the rim dark green and the pot red. Dot the red with black and you have a watermelon pot. Again, a 3 yo can sponge paint a pot and have it come out really nice. These are best used indoors, unless you use special outdoor paint and sealer.

Door stops: Similar to above, but paint a brick with a base color and add sponge painted decoration on one large side. Add a wide wire ribbon around the narrow sides of the brick with a bow on top, and you have a door stop. These are best if you do not need to mail them!

Gift mixes: Russian tea in a jar, cookies in a jar, etc. The kids can help measure and add ribbon to decorate the jars.

Paper Chains: A paper chain is a method of counting down the days until Christmas. On December 1st, cut 12 strips out of red construction paper and 12 strips out of green construction paper. Then connect the strips by interlocking the strips; red, green, red, green, etc. and then stapling them closed. Now you have your chain. On December 2nd, tear off the first loop, then on the 3rd, tear off another, etc. until you get to Christmas! A fun activity for young ones.

A snowman using a light bulb. Paint a face on it and tie a scarf around the neck of it and put a hat on top. You can use an old sweater. It is adorable!!

Simple snowman snowball. Two circles of white fleece, with a snowman face stitched on one side, [or painted on with fabric paint] then stitched together and stuffed. Kids can throw them around like snowballs. Add ribbon, and it can be a Christmas tree ornament.

Candy Cane craft: Take a long strip of felt and punch double holes in it all the way down. Tie a candy cane (or other treat) with yarn using the holes as a base. Each day untie a treat! For extra enjoyment, read about the history of the candy cane and the way it relates to Jesus.

Also, you can make a felt or poster Christmas tree and do the same type of thing using the calendar shapes sold in teacher supply stores. They've got gingerbread men, snowflakes, candy canes, etc.
One thing I'd like to do next year is get a styrofoam triangle and spray it green (Christmas tree) then "plant" lollipops in it to use for my younger son. He's a candy-a-holic!

Snowman Poop
Take some mini-marshmallows, put them in a baggie, and make a little card for the tag - a pic of a snowman, and this verse....
I know you've been bad
So here's the scoop
All you get for Christmas
Is Snowman Poop!

Snowman Soup
Need:
1 individual pack hot chocolate mix
3 Hershey's chocolate kisses
15 mini-marshmallows
1 candy cane
Mug or styrofoam cup
Tag
These make adorable gifts for teachers, neighbors, friends and family. Enjoy making them with your children!
Assemble these items in plastic wrap or a plastic baggie. Tie with pretty ribbon. Place items in mug or cup, slide the candycane in, and attach the poem:
Was told you've been real good this year.
Always glad to hear it!
With freezing weather drawing near,
You'll need to warm the spirit!
So here's a little Snowman Soup
Complete with stirring stick.
Add hot water, sip it slow.
It's sure to do the trick!

Christmas Tree
You'll need:
white frosting
green food coloring
pointy ice cream cones
large cookies
regular green M & M's
mini M & M's
Frost a large cookie with white frosting.
Stick an ice cream cone onto the frosted cookie, open end down.
Mix some green food coloring into some of the white frosting and cover the ice cream cone with it.
Stick green M & M's all over the frosted cone.
Put a little frosting on the backs of different colored mini M & M's and stick them on top of the regular M & M's for ornaments.

Popsicle Stick Christmas Tree
Materials:
5 Popsicle Sticks
Glue Gun
Light Green Paint, (any kind of craft paint, even water colors, or markers will do)
Buttons, multicolored, different shapes,sizes
fishing wire
Instructions:
Use 1 popsicle stick as the spine of the tree. Glue one full stick across the bottom, leaving and inch or so space for trunk.
Cut the other 3 sticks, into graduated lengths, to be used as branches going up the tree. (Use a very sharp tool when cutting; dull tools, such as scissors, splinter the wood.) You will be using the rounded ends joined together at the spine to form the branches. Toss the middle parts of the popsicle sticks. This will maintain a uniform shape, and all ends will be rounded.
Leave about 1/2" between your branches.
Leave a space on top of the spine to glue your special star.
We found a bead shaped like a star, with a hole in it going sideways that we could use to thread the fishing wire and hang on tree.
Glue at least 3 buttons across each branch. One on each end, then one covering the joint in the middle. The bottom branch can probably have 4 buttons.
You can use anything to decorate your tree once you have the form made. Candy, glitter, buttons, sequence, whatever you can think of.
It doesn't matter if the branches aren't glued on straight, this makes it even cuter.

Sequin Egg
Materials:
styrofoam eggs - real egg size
straight pins
sequence, multicolored,round, hole/middle
beads, tiny, multicolored
Instructions:
Put a bead, then a sequence, on the straight pin, then poke the pin into the sequence egg. Fill entire egg, overlapping a bit to hide the styrofoam.
Although a little hard on the fingers, this is easy and fun for all ages, and makes a beautiful ornament. Use a piece of ribbon on top, stabbed in with extra pins at an angle to use as your means to hang on tree.

Emoticon Magnets
Materials:
computer and printer
colored markers
clear, flat decorative gems(like you put in fish tanks)
glue
small round self adhesive magnets
Create a variety of emoticon faces slightly smaller than the gems. When you have enough print them out.
Use markers to decorate and color around the faces(they show bears, birds, clowns, frogs, people etc.-face only ) Then cut out the faces, trimming them to ovals or circles slightly smaller than the gems.
Glue each face to the back of a gem,so the face shows through the other side. Affix a magnet. Let dry.

Inexpensive Candle Gift
Use a canning jar (quart or pint), small mouth. Purchase a glass votif candle holder, the basic clear glass kind with a rim at the top. I got these for .49 each. Fill the canning jar with potpourri, candy, small stuffed bears or snowmen, anything actually will work. I found some cheap Christmas ornaments that stand up in there. Set the candle holder in the neck, with a votif candle in it. Wrap the neck with a fabric bow, (I coordinated color with the candle) some raffia, and you are all set. An adorable candle holder, and it costs next to nothing, especially if you already have canning jars sitting around!

CD-Rom Craft/Gift
Take the CD, drill a hole in the top (small drill...do first because some might break), and then attach a photo to the printed side of the CD. Then write on it "The [last name] Family, 2008" over the picture (you could do it with a pretty gold pen) and put a laminate sheet (from Sam's club) over the whole thing. Just cut the picture a little shorter than the round shape so the laminate can stick to the CD rom. Attach an ornament hanger. You could jazz it up a little bit by putting a ribbon on it too. Everyone who got them liked them! Cheap too, and pretty!

Borax Crystal Snowflake
Grow a snowflake in a jar!
You will need:

string
wide mouth pint jar
white pipe cleaners
blue food coloring (optional)
boiling water (with adult help)
borax (available at grocery stores in the laundry soap section, as 20 Mule Team Borax Laundry Booster - NOT Boraxo soap)
pencil

Directions:
With a little kitchen science you can create long lasting snowflakes as sparkly as the real ones. Cut a white pipe cleaner into 3 equal sections. Twist the sections together in the center so that you have a "six-sided" star shape.
Pipe cleaners and string form a snowflake base for the crystals to grow on. If your points are not even, trim the pipe-cleaner sections to the same length. Now attach string along the outer edges to form a snowflake pattern.
Attach a piece of string to the top of one of the pipe cleaners and tie the other end to a pencil (this is to hang it from). Fill a widemouth jar with boiling water. Mix borax into the water one tablespoon at a time. Use 3 tablespoons of borax per cup of water. Stir until dissolved, (don't worry if there is powder settling on the bottom of the jar). If you want you can add a little blue food coloring now to give the snowflake a bluish hue. Insert your pipe cleaner snowflake into the jar so that the pencil is resting on the lip of the jar and the snowflake is freely suspended in the borax solution. Wait overnight and by morning the snowflake will be covered with shiny crystals. Hang in a window as a sun-catcher or use as a winter time decoration.

The Science Behind the Fun
Borax is an example of crystal - "a solid with flat sides and a symmetrical shape because its molecules are arranged in a unique, repeating pattern."
Every crystal has a repeating pattern based on it's unique shape. They may be big or little, but they all have the same "shape". Salt, sugar, and Epsom salts are all examples of crystals. Salt crystals are always cube-shaped while snow crystals form a six-sided structure.

How do the Borax crystals grow?
Hot water holds more borax crystals than cold water. That's because heated water molecules move farther apart, making room for more of the borax crystals to dissolve. When no more of the solution can be dissolved, you have reached saturation. As this solution cools, the water molecules move closer together again. Now there's less room for the solution to hold onto as much of the dissolved borax. Crystals begin to form and build on one another as the water lets go of the excess and evaporates.
This also applies to snowflakes - As water cools the molecules move closer together. Since all water molecules are shaped the same (H2O) they align in a six sided crystal.--Sharon T.

Crafting "Story Section"
Read here for great crafting stories and ideas told first-hand! These experiences were related by members of HomeschoolChristian's message boards.

Sharon T. says:
A craft party is a great way to have your kids make Christmas gifts! We have ordered the crafts from this company for a couple of years now. We have a craft party--each kid invites a couple of friends over and they pay $2.00 (cover the cost of the craft) and make ornaments to take home. The kids have a lot of fun making the items and building friendships and it gives them something to make as inexpensive gifts. We do a craft a month this way--makes me feel like such a "crafty" mom (for cheap!!)If you order a whole years worth at once (I think it's around $50.00) you can usually get free shipping too!

Mary Leggewie replies:
After reading Sharon's post about a craft party, I jumped on it! A couple weeks ago, I circulated the Oriental Trading Company catalog among 3 other HS friends who live within a block or two of us and we picked out about 5 crafts to share.
When the order came, I cut out the picture, taped it to a card, & put the price for that craft on it (most were 40-70 cents) and people paid me back based on which crafts they did. I didn't mind having extra this time because I'm going to use them as gifts. We had TWELVE kids at my dining room table (covered and moved into our kitchen for safety!). Each mom had 3 kids and a glue gun to help the kids. We had kids ranging from 2-11 (3 girls, 9 boys). I used aluminum foil for placemats, and we wrote their names on them. The did the same craft at the same time, and we did the easiest 2 first, so that the little ones could go play after that while we did a harder one.
What we'll do differently next time:
We'll pick a batch of crafts (enough to get free shipping) and spread it out over a couple craft days over a month or two. I think for the age range we're dealing with, we'll do 2 crafts for the younger ones and offer a third for the kids who want more.
I would also find the time to baggie the crafts up into individual sets (we spent a lot of wasted time getting all the materials distributed). Next time I won't want leftovers, so I'll probably take firm orders for each craft. Also, I'll make copies ahead of time for each mother of the instructions.
Most families spent about $6 for their 3 kids to make some nice stuff!
I recommend getting a print copy of the Oriental Trading Company catalog, because the Web site only has a fraction of what they offer.

HomeschoolChristian's Christmas Section

Christmas Crafts

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HomeschoolChristian's
Christmas Section