This is the 1st year that me and Katie will be completely on our own for Christmas. I'd like to start a tradition maybe or just do some fun crafty things and bake cookies with her. She turns 4 a few days before Christmas. Does anyone have some good cookie recipes or craft ideas that we could do together?
do you have a christmas tree? i know every year me, my mom and sister would make ginger bread ornaments. ginger bread people (not edible but smelled wonderful for years) and then painted them and put glitter and stuff on them. wed mark the back of them each year. i still have them. lots of memories.
Yeah, I have a x-mas tree. So, these gingerbread people don't go bad from year to year? or fall apart? Did you have to preserve them with something?
we like to make ornaments. my favourites are the ones with pics from the latest year - from school or just snapshots. we back them on posterboard (because you can get a lot of it for very cheap) and then add things around the "frame" part. this year we put beads on pipe cleaners, made a little loop for it to go on the branch, and then glued the beaded pipe cleaner to the pic and poster board. it sounds cheap, looks awesome. in past years we made photo cubes, with a photo on each side, glued to posterboard. those are pretty awesome too.
another one is using felt. you can cut out different sized circles (trace lids to make perfect circles) and attach them with yarn to make a dangly snowman. the kid gets to decorate it.
we also used felt to make cards. take the posterboard (see, it comes in handy!) and make a card shape. we wrapped felt all around the outside it to look like a wrapped present, complete with a bow. this one involved a lot of random glitter for us, but you can really go in any direction. they look super cute and cost barely anything.
pipecleaners and beads are also a staple on our christmas tree (and the trees of our loved ones since these double as gifts!). you can make any shape really easily out of a pipe cleaner, and they will hold beads really easily, especially for a kid. we have stars, snowflakes, and candycane shapes. my kid also gave these out to his friends as gifts last year. the beads we used are glow in the dark neon ones because thats what i had laying around (don't ask) but again, you can use anything. no one says xmas has to be green and red!
i made a plaster of paris-ish recipe off the internet last year and he pressed his hand into it to make ornaments, which he then got to paint. i etched the year and his name into the back before it dried and we gave them as gifts. super cute memento.
we haven't done it this year, but one year we made all our own wrapping paper. i had been ambitious earlier in the year and went to the place where our newspaper is printed and asked for the "end of the roll." they gave me a ton of blank newsprint for free, and we used it for crafts all year. at christmas we did handprint paper, apple paper (an apple cut in half has that nifty star shape in the center, it was a good stamp), potato stamp paper (cut a potato in half, then make a shape and cut around it so that the shape becomes a stamp - we made stars), "funky" paper where we put the paint down and then blew threw straws to make it go in neat designs all across the paper, and so on. we had more than we needed for gifts so for fun, we gift wrapped our bedroom doors - complete with bows! it looked very festive :P
you can string just about anything onto hemp string or thread and make it a "garland." we had cheerios one year!
one year our loved ones got pencil holders, decorated by the kid, using old cans, string, and paint. some of them weren't very glam but they were all adorable.
thats all i can think of off the top of my head, but if you have any random craft supplies laying around, just use your imagination and possibly a little help from google. there is no need for it to cost you any (or very much) money. our most treasured keepsakes were made from things laying around the house, or sometimes using things from the dollar store.
have fun!
Wow Kaya, those are great ideas! When I was a kid my family made ornaments for each other a lot, and they're all still alive and kicking on the tree. It's great because I remember a lot more about say, the time my sister made hollowed-out-eggs for ornaments than the time my dad went out and bought xyz ornament.
Nope. they might break if you just throw them in a box but any ornament can do that. we kept them in a stuffed tupperware container with tissues or toilet paper. i can ask my mom fo the recipe. hopefully she still has it. its been years. :( maybe its about time me and her make some again :)
We've used felt and traced her feet and hand to make a reindeer (one foot is the head, 2 hands are the antlers).
We've made fingerprint snowmen on glass votives for candles.
This year we've used the puffy, fabric paint to dot decorations on construction paper trees and stockings (using red and white).
Ok, you people are way too creative for me! Thanks for the great ideas!
i just posted a post saying the exact same thing. im definately doing the candle and reindeer thing!