Christmas craft ideas
For some festive fun, sometimes the best times are the simplest times! Get the kids involved or have some fun making free, foraged (or super reasonable) festive decor yourself. Here are some super easy Christmas craft ideas to try:
#1 Paper chains - Paper chains are particularly fun at Christmas. They’re a cheap and simple way to decorate a Christmas tree or hang around the home and all you need is some paper (wrapping paper works well) and double sided tape or glue. Cut small strips of paper, the size you want your rings to be. Fold the ends over so the strip makes a circle, and stick the ends together. Create another circle through your first one and continue linking the circles together until your chain has reached its desired length. Easy!
Kids craft level up: use a roll of brown paper (or reuse brown paper saved from parcels that have been delivered). Cut out simple shapes into halved potatoes, grab the poster paint and get stamping! Even fingerprint painting makes easy patterns.
#2 Popcorn strands - Popcorn and cranberry strands are an old-fashioned holiday tradition. Like the paper chain, they can be used to hang on a tree or decorate other areas of your home. You’ll need to pop some popcorn (a good idea to buy plain kernels not sticky readymade bags!), grab a punnet or two of fresh cranberries and find a needle and durable thread. Thread the popcorn kernels and cranberries together to create your festive strand.
Kids craft rating: A great one for older kids and teens.
#3 Paper snowflakes - A classic Christmas craft activity and all you need is some white paper and scissors - if you keep a box of scrap paper for kids to draw on - use that! Cut a paper into a square; fold into a triangle, fold again from the top corner to the bottom one, making a smaller triangle. Then fold the triangle into three, from left to right and cut across the top to make it straight. Then snip, snip, snip - get creative and make some patterns. Don’t worry about making it perfect, just see how it turns out and have fun!
Kids craft level up: Google paper snowflake patterns, there are amazing ones out there. I made some Star Wars paper snowflakes from templates before which looked amazing and impressed my Star Wars-mad son! This is great for older kids and teens, simpler snowflakes are ideal for younger children.
#4 Gingerbread houses and cookies - Who doesn’t love a cookie, and decorating them is a lot of fun. If you want to get even more elaborate or detailed, consider getting the family involved to make a gingerbread house. You can buy kits to help you make a gingerbread house and they usually come with everything you need, including the sweetie decorations. Great fun, and even more fun smashing and eating it later! Mix icing sugar and water to make icing (not too runny!) that sweets will stick to - easy icing for kids to make.
Kids craft level up: Top tip - use a gingerbread man cookie cutter to cut out biscuits of your choice (gingerbread works best, shortbread is also good if kids don’t like gingerbread). Turn the gingerbread man upside down - now with icing decorate the legs as antlers, the arms become the ears, add chocolate buttons as eyes and a nose, and hey presto you have reindeer biscuits! (you could use a red smartie for Rudolph’s nose!) If you don’t want to do the baking or don’t have time, buy supermarket mini gingerbread men and let the kids go crazy with the decorating.
#5 Pine cone ornaments - Pine cones make fab tree decorations and table centrepieces. Collect them in your garden, in the park or woods. You can add small items like buttons and knick-knacks to the cone with hot glue, or you can spray them with adhesive and sprinkle with glitter - or paint PVA glue to half the cone and dip the glued end into glitter. If you’d rather manage the glitter situation, glitter glue is a less messy alternative! Or just use paint for a non-glitter craft.
Once decorated, string the cones together and hang them on your Christmas tree or place them in a glass bowl as a centrepiece.
Kids craft rating: Easy for even the little ones
These simple Christmas crafts are perfect for school holidays, wet weekend days or as a fun activity following an autumnal walk outside. A piece of paper can become a snowflake masterpiece and pine cone can become a beautiful decoration that the kids will be proud of, and you too!
Have fun being creative and remember the simple things that make this time special.
Printable craft activity packs
If you’d like to download and print out craft activity packs from my shop, I’ve got loads to keep you and the kids busy! Two Christmas packs feature a load of great original activities, including colouring-in sheets handdrawn by me, make your own Christmas wreath, make your own cute Christmas dinner, Nutcracker and Christmas family paper dolls to play with, and even make your own Christmas log cabin which will provide hours of fun after the initial colouring and making as it can be played with again and again - perhaps even Father Christmas will visit the children who live in the log cabin and leave tiny presents under their tree?
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