11 Simple Holiday Crafts


Hand Santa Prints: Paint the palm of your child's hand a skin color (Santa’s face), each finger white (his beard), across the top of the palm and the thumb red (Santa's hat). Give Santa facial features with markers and there you’ll have an instant Santa. You can even add white fur and a pom-pom around his hat.

Body Reindeer Prints: Make reindeers by painting your child’s hand brown for the antlers and your child’s foot brown for the head. Add the nose out of a red pom-pom, draw a mouth, and add googly craft eyes.

Unique Ornaments: Purchase short plastic disposable drinking cups. Let child decorate with permanent markers. Sharpies work well. Heat toaster oven to highest degree available. Place cup in toaster oven upside down on foil. Watch carefully as plastic collapses. As soon as it falls flat, remove from oven. Using a coat hanger or cork screw, poke a hole in the top. Once cool, remove from foil. Make a hanger using pretty ribbon. Purchase a small suction cup and hang in the window as a sun catcher or hang on your Christmas tree.

Pasta Wreath: Using about 25 wagon wheel pasta, dye some green and a few red. Dye pasta by dipping in a strong solution of food coloring, cake decorating dye, or liquid watercolor, thinned with rubbing alcohol. Let dry. Using a green pipe cleaner, thread them to make a wreath. Shape it into a circle, leaving enough to form a small loop on top to hang it.

Coffee Filter Wreath: Cut a hole in the center of the coffee filter, lay flat. Take green and red tissue paper and cut in small squares. Glue them to the coffee filter. Punch hole in top of filter and add green, red or yellow yarn for a hanger.

Bow Painting: Put a small amount of paint on a plate or paint tray. Take a regular paper bow (one you put on the top of a present) and dip it side down into the paint and then press on a piece of paper. you can use different shapes and sizes.

Homemade Cards/Wrapping Paper: Have your child make homemade holiday cards or thank you cards using holiday stamps, stickers or cookie cutters dipped in red and green paint. Butcher paper can be decorated to make wrapping paper.

Jingle Bell Painting: Place loose jingle bells in a small box lid. Lay a piece of paper flat in the box. Add a squirt of paint (red or green would be festive). Allow your child to shake the box from side to side, creating a abstract painting. They always enjoy this favorite activity (using marbles) but now they will enjoy this new, "musical" twist. Try this fun activity at the same time you're singing "Jingle Bells".

Pre-Lit Christmas Tree: Give your child a green piece of construction paper tree with several holes punched all over it. (Fold tree in 1/2 if necessary to get holes closer to center) Give child lots of colored squares of tissue paper to glue over the holes on the back side. When all holes have been covered, turn tree over and it looks like Christmas lights are shining through.

Hand Tree Prints: Paint your child's hand with green paint. Place on paper with fingers together, pointing up. This will be the Christmas tree. After it dries, give your child stickers, beads, pompoms, etc. to decorate with. Use fingertips to paint on dots for ornaments.

Recycle Holiday Cards: Tape holiday greeting cards face up on your table.  Lay butcher paper over the cards and let your child use crayons to create rubbings. Your child may also have fun cutting out pictures from the cards and gluing onto paper, creating a new “holiday scene”. Cards can also be used for gift tags for presents. Turn a card into a lacing activity by punching holes around the edges. Any shoestring or ribbon can be used to lace with.