Craft Ideas for SMALL Christmas Tree

with my school kids I do ornaments of glue. THey are really easy. You just get a plastic lid off something (i've only used the yougart lids, but maybe a milk lid may work for a small tree). Fill the bottom so a thin layer of glue completly covers the bottom, put food coloring in and give it a small swirl with a stick. After they are completly dry, pop them out of the lid, hole punch a hole in the top, add a string and whala....and its really hard for a 4 year old to mess these up...unless you take them out an dthey are not dry!

Someone Else Suggested these, they are called Cinnamon Applesauce Ornaments. Here is the recipe and instructions. I have made them several times, they are fun, they smell great and are great for little hands because its like playdough. They take a while to dry but they last for many years if you store them in a sealed container of a ziplock bag. Mine still smell great and I haven't made fresh ones in 4 years.
Make the dough ahead of time and have it ready for your craft.

Cinnamon Applesauce Ornaments

What you'll need:
1 1/2 cups ground cinnamon
1 cup applesauce
1/4 cup white school glue (like Elmer's)
Bowl
Plastic food wrap
Rolling pin
Wax paper
Cookie cutters or a knife
Ribbon or yarn for hanging
Straw
How to make it:
Mix cinnamon, applesauce, and glue together in a bowl. The dough should be as thick as cookie dough. Add a bit of water if the dough is too stiff.
Remove from bowl and knead. Put it back in the bowl, cover with plastic wrap, and let sit for at least a half hour.
Remove the dough, knead again to make sure it's smooth. Flatten/roll the dough between waxed paper until it's between 1/4" thick and 1/8" thick.
Cut out desired shapes, use a straw to punch a hole for the ribbon to hang. The circle of dough will pull out with the straw.
Gently place the shapes on a piece of clean wax paper. They will take 3-5 days to dry, and you will need to turn them over a couple of times a day for them to dry evenly and flat.

Don't be surprised to see that the ornaments get smaller during the drying process. Keep this in mind when you pick out the cookie cutters for your designs. You will also notice that if you do not turn the ornaments over often enough while they are drying, the edges of the ornaments will curl. (You can also dry them in the oven on warm for several hours, turn the oven on as LOW as it will go and keep checking them that they don't burn. Be sure to turn them over.)

When dry, thread a piece of ribbon or yarn through the hole to hang.
If the scent begins to fade over time just dab with a drop of cinnamon oil.

SHAPE IDEAS: Tree, Apple, House (gingerbread), Bell, Heart, Goose, Gingerbread Man, Star...

HAVE FUN :)

S.

flower water and salt makes a great modeling clay he can sculpt cany canes or other ornaments let the dry and then paint them together and glue glitter on them etc.

For Thanksgiving we did Christmas ornament crafts with my 3 yr old and his 3 yr old cousin. We had previously cut out of felt a green christmas tree and the we had them help us sew beads on it (they thread the bead through the needle). Then we had 2 red stockings cut out and we just cut little slits on the sides and the kids wove (well they would push or pull) a white ribbon through the slits. My sis in law got the idea from parents magazine. Here is a link to find more ideas http://www.parents.com/holiday/christmas/crafts/

One year I found a small bucket of thin wooden shapes at the dollar store. There were circles, squares, triangles, etc. of different sizes. We glued them together and painted them to make mini ornaments for an 18" tree, and they turned out really cute!

The ones I can remember were a square with a rectangle and small rectangle put together to make a house, then painted like a gingerbread house. I overlapped the shapes. I even glued a tiny bit of cotton ball to the back of the chimney for smoke.
Three circles of different sizes made a snowman. A small square made his hat. I bit of yarn could be a scarf.
My husband and I were dating at the time, and we had roommates and friends over for this crafty project. I gave my husband a small tree for his apartment, and it was sports themed, so we painted lots of circles like different sports balls.

I remember there were little tear-drop shapes, too. I just painted those metallic gold and turned them so the point was down, and they looked like little glass ornaments or icicles something. There were also teeny star shapes. I used them as "filler" teeny ornaments to fill up the empty spaces on the tree.

When we had our shapes all painted, we turned them over and glued ornament hooks to the back for easy hanging.

I painted two larger star shapes gold and sandwiched an ornament hook between them with glue. Then I straightened the hook and wound the wire around the top of the tree to hold on the two-sided star tree-topper.

I also provided my husband's tree with a red velvet ribbon (I actually cut it in half length-wise so it was narrow enough) and some gold mardi-gras type beads to wind around the tree as garland. I found a mini tree skirt and short strand of lights (about 35 bulbs) at the dollar store, too.

It turned out really cute and it was fun to make. I'm sure you could adapt some things so your son can help paint the ornaments, too. I wonder if you could use foam shapes instead of wood? They might be easier.

You could get some prints of pictures of your son and your family - and some glitter and construction paper and ribbon. You can do the cutting, but he can help pick the pictures and put the mini-picture-ornaments together and tie them on the tree.

Children will enjoy creating their own kid-sized Coat Hanger Christmas Tree with this delightful craft project.

What you'll need:
6 plastic (or wire) coat hangers
Christmas mini-lights (one string of 35 works great)
Garland, any color
Tape (electrical tape is good)
How to make it:
To begin select 2 hangers. Lay one hanger on the other with the hanging part (C-shape) pointing in down position.
Tape the two hangers together at one end. Make three sets of two hangers.
Put one set of hangers through the opening of first hanger, then put the other set through the two to form a cone (tree).
Tape all three together. Set up. It will stand up by itself.
Next wrap light on tree and secure with tape. I usually tape each light on. Next wrap with garland.
WOW! YOU JUST MADE A TREE. ENJOY.

Tips:
Once the hangers are taped together, the rest of the tree can be assembled by children, with some adult assistance.

I liked the wire coat hangers best, the plastic ones were just too bulky. It sure is a cute tree when it is all done and you have the garland and lights on it. Hope you like this one.

if you have some mini cookie cutters, you could make applesauce ornaments. you mix cinnamon, applesauce and elmers glue (google applesauce ornaments and you will get a lot of recipes for the amounts of ingredients in the dough depending on how many ornaments you want to make) and roll the dough like regular cookie dough then cut out shapes. poke a little hole at the top for a ribbon and leave them to dry out for a day or two. i am planning on making some of these with our daughter this year to send to the families. happy holidays!

I decorate 1ft trees for my boys' rooms. One has a sports-themed room (his team colors in ribbon bows & I do a short strand of lights in team colors as well) & the other is patriotic (again, patriotic bows, patriotic lights). I bought a yard of seed pearl "string" once & decorated a tree w/just that & tiny red ribbon bows too-looked great.
As far as ornaments, maybe he can draw pictures on a paper, you cut out little pieces of his picture, cover it in contac paper to "laminate" it & poke a small hole (w/a nail maybe) to thread ribbon through. Hobby Lobby has an entire section of "My tree" (I think it was called, full of mini ornaments for the small trees) ornaments. I got some small silver balls I'm going to paint w/acrylic paints for a gift. You could pick up some cheap arylic paints from Walmart (hobby stores & dollar stores are more expensive-last time I checked anyway), some paint brushes & glitter from the dollar store, lay out a plastic table cloth or old shower curtain on the tile floor & let him go to town.
Have fun!

my nieces made beautiful ornaments using the lids from frozen juice cans, puff paint, and glued on ribbon. not tiny, but it probably wouldn't overwhelm a mini tree either.

Depending on his coordination and if he could do it high enough from your little girl, he could help make a beaded garland. You use the large pony beads and get a plastic needle and can string them. This is great for hand eye skills too.