Holiday Crafts for Kids

It's that time of year when everyone is so busy and schedules are all messed up due to holiday events and company coming.  I love crafting with my kids or just handing them a pile of craft supplies and seeing what they make.  Almost nothing is off-limits to them to create with.  We have a stock of felt, construction paper, stamps and ink, scrapbooking paper and stickers, hot glue, glue sticks, glitter, beads, googlie eyes, popsicle sticks, magnets and sheets of foam... among other things... MANY other things!  There's always a mess to clean up afterward, it's true, but the kids have the best time just being able to create!
I thought I would put together a few holiday crafts that your kids could do easily without much mess.  Hope you have as much fun crafting with your kids as I do with mine.

Christmas Tree

Cut a Christmas tree out of green construction paper and let the kids stick foil star stickers on them.  I usually use a cookie cutter to cut the shape of the tree and give each child their own tree.  The foil star stickers are a little tough for younger kids to manipulate, but it's a great fine motor skill activity and there's nearly no mess.  Be creative.  Look in the office supplies as well as the craft section of your store for other stickers like dots that would make great looking Christmas balls.  Make different sized trees.  Tape them all to a string and hang them on the tree or over a window as garland.  Put a magnet on the back and put it on the fridge.  Tape them on the wall to create a forest of Christmas trees.  Take your garland to a nursing home and ask if you can place it on their tree while you visit with the residents there.  (when i had in-home daycare, we planned monthly visits to the nursing home.  we would do a craft there that the residents would help us with and have a snack.  one year, i read the christmas story and the children acted out the parts.  they simply love company!) You can use the free clip art from Carson-Dellosa to print a tree on construction paper if you'd rather.  (this website has lots!  you can save the pics to your computer and use them as coloring pages, too!)  This is a great, low mess, fast craft.

Cinnamon Bear Ornaments

Have the kids help you mix 1/2 cup of cinnamon, 1/3 cup of applesauce and 1 tablespoon of glue together in a bowl.  Dust a cutting board with cinnamon and roll the dough out.  It should be about the consistency of cookie dough.  Have the kids cut out Christmas shapes using cookie cutters.  Use a straw to make a whole in the top so it will be easy to string.  Place the shapes on a cooling rack that you've placed in a large cookie sheet.  Put the ornaments in the oven with a temperature of 200 degrees.  You can also let these air dry but it will take longer.  After they're dry, the kids can decorate them or they can go straight on the tree after you've put a string of ribbon through the hole.

Snowmen

There are so many ways to make a cute snowman!  One of my favorites is with paint.  Don't cringe!  It can still be a clean and easy craft.  Here's what you'll need:

1 sheet of blue construction paper per child
white, orange and black paint
a top hat cut out of black construction paper or felt (don't worry about being fancy if you don't want to... the kids don't care nearly as much as we do about that kind of thing)
2 or 3 sponges cut into circles, one a litter smaller than the other
a pencil with a full eraser
a paint brush

Pour a large amount of the white paint onto a paper plate.  Pour a small amount of the black and the orange paint onto another paper plate.  Dip the largest circle sponge in the white paint (you don't need a lot of paint to do this) and direct the child to stamp it near the bottom of the page... it's their project, so don't direct too much.  Repeat this with the other sponges having the child stack the circles to make a snowman.  Dip the head of the pencil eraser into the black paint and have the kids stamp eyes, mouth and buttons on their snowman.  Using the paint brush, you can paint a skinny triangle for the nose or older children can do it themselves.  Have the children glue the hat onto the snowman's head.
You can also draw a snowman on a piece of construction paper and allow the children to glue cotton balls or marshmallows on the snowman.  Eyes, nose and mouth can be made with construction paper, buttons, popcorn, cheerios or just about anything you can think of.  Use pipe cleaners for arms or popsicle sticks as seen here.

One more tip to give is if you have lots of kids to craft with, put a Christmas movie on and hand out popcorn.  While they're watching the show, invite one child at a time to the table to complete the craft.  That gives you great one-on-one time with your kids and makes the craft time nearly stress-free.
Make memories with  your kids.  It's this stuff, not a gift that is "bigger and better", that creates the memories that last a lifetime.