Christmas Party Crafts

Hi C.,
There are some great easy and fun crafts at Michaels.
They have foam shaped in all sorts of holiday ideas.
Have the kids decorate there own christmas ornament.
Also, if you energetic make some sugar cookies and then let the kids each decorate their own cookie.

Have fun!

when I was a kid, we used to always make candy can reindeer to hang on our tree.
need: candy cane, brown pipe cleaner, small red puff ball, 2 googly eyes, glue gun OR elmers (glue gun works better)
wrap the pipe cleaner around the curve of the candy cane and shape into antlers.
glue the eyes on and the little red ball to be a nose.
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or, one that takes time is trace a hand from each kid. cut out 10-12 hands from green construction paper. cut red circles from red construction paper. tape or glue them into a circle and make a wreath with berries.
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You can always do easy crafts like coloring, cut out stockings or santa faces and have the kids glue cotton balls for the top of the stocking or santa's beard.

Have fun!

just found in Target (Deptford) an easy foam craft...basically plain snowmen with all the accessories so you can decorate your own...those peel back stickers. They were in the holiday section. no mess....

may also want to play Christmas bingo

How about paper chains for the tree or to hang on a mantle? Or you could make ornaments out of foam cutouts, or do what I did in nursery school and make picture ornaments out of the lids of hair spray or spray starch. My mom gave me my ornament that I made when I was 4 to hang on my tree, and I love seeing how much my daughter looks like me at that age! If you're interested, email me and I can give you basic how-to's.

Perhaps the older children can help some of the younger children. I'd concentrate on each making a holiday ornament keepsake. Perhaps papersnowflakes for the older children and for the younger ones, tracing their handprints, adding the date to the back. And/or... have them each come with a small photo and perhaps that can be added to the ornament. I know there is a website that has templates for snowflakes if needed. Also, check out Crayola.com Good luck and keep it fun and stressless... :>)

Hi C.,
I just went to Joanne Fabric's yesterday and I bought wooden ornaments that my boys can paint or draw on for the tree. The ornaments were .99 with 30% off and yes they sold glitter, but there were other crafty things you could glue on the ornaments. They had an assortment of ornaments and not just the typical santa, snowflake etc, Thia is actually a store I shop at frequently for inexpensive creative stuff for my kids to do on the weekends. Hope that helps.
A.

When we were small, my mom bought green felt. We cut out Christmas trees from the felt and decorated them with sequins using fabric/tacky glue. Then we put magnets on the back and hung them on the refrigerator.

You can also find a recipe (I don't have it on me) for a dough that you can bake and paint. We did Christmas tree ornaments with this. We used Christmas cookie cutters to cut out the shapes. Then we used a toothpick to put a hole in the top that we could put a string through to hang it on the tree. Then we baked them. When they were cool. We painted them. You could prepare them ahead of time and just let the kids paint them. (The dough was pretty much salt, flour and water. I don't remember if there was anything else in it. You could try searching for it on the web. I think it was a playdough recipe that you could bake to harden.)

Anyhow, hope this helps.

Google Family Fun magazine. They have a website w/ tons of great ideas.

One I think we might do for the school party is to make snowflakes out of pipe cleaners & beads. Easy, no mess of glue & sure to make them all happy. And the older ones could get a bit more elaborate than the younger ones.

Or perhaps paper snowflakes. Get those scrapbooking scissors (great for young kids afterwards) and any hole punches or otherwise & let them get as fancy as they want. For the little ones, they could have parents cut out basic shapes & decorate w/ stickers or crayons.

What about paper chains? You could pre-cut the paper, and if you can trust the older ones with tape or a stapler-do it that way or use blank self adhesive address lables as tape for the younger ones, just peel and stick.

ANother idea would be gingerbread houses. Either real edible ones or stuff a brown paper bag with newspaper and fold the top down like a roof and glue or stick on decorations like pom poms or rick rack ;you could probably google a better description from family fun or something.

oooo- family fun has directions for jingle bell bracelets.

How about the peel and stick foamy shapes that they can use to decorate a gift bag, door hanger, etc? Most kids like those.

How about a gingerbread house?

ac moore has crafts too. they come in a bag with everything you need, except glue. they are usually on sale, 4 for $3 or something. i get them for all of the holidays and do them with my 2 year old son. my husband even did one with him this morning, so they must be easy!! they are great gifts too.