It’s that time of year again, the shops are filled with chocolate Santa’s and the streets are lit up with beautiful lights which can only mean one thing, it’s time to celebrate Christmas again!
The weeks leading up to Christmas is the perfect time to encourage children’s creativity in nurseries and pre-school. What better way to get the children in to the swing of it than with some Christmassy craft.
Here are our top ten Christmas craft ideas and what you will need to make them.
Festive Mistletoes Christmas Card
What you will need:
- Card
- Different coloured paint
- Paint brushes
- Coloured pens
Instructions:
- The ‘mistletoes’ are created by a child’s footprints
- Paint child’s foot and get them to stand on the plain card and carefully lift their feet off to leave the footprints.
- Once the footprints have dried paint or draw the ribbons, lettering and polka dots.
- Feel free to add sparkly glitter or any other decorations of your choice.
- Once dried you can write on the inside and give your personalised card to your loved ones.
Christmas Stocking Tree Decorations
What you will need:
- Red felt
- Needle and thread
- Decorations (sequins, buttons, glitter, etc.)
- Fabric glue
- Ribbon or string
Instructions:
- First cut out two stocking shaped pieces of felt and sew them together to make a stocking (adults may need to assist for safety).
- Next cut out a length of ribbon and fold in half to make a loop which can be sewn or glued to the inside of the stocking.
- Decorate the stocking by either gluing or sewing buttons, stars and glitter on to create a Christmassy stocking.
- Leave to dry and then hang it on your tree at home.
Sock Snowman
What you will need:
- A white ankle sock
- Baby sock
- Toy stuffing
- Fabric glue
- Ribbon
- Thread
- Brown felt
- Scrap of orange craft foam
- Sequins/buttons
- Scrap card
Instructions:
- First cut a small circle out of card and place in the bottom of the ankle sock to create a base for the snowman to stand on.
- Next fill the sock to the ankle with stuffing and tie a knot in the top, cut off the excess above the knot.
- Tie a ribbon around the sock a third of the way up so that the larger ball is at the bottom and the smaller ball is at the top – this will be the snow man’s head.
- Put the baby sock on the snowman’s head to make his hat, tie a piece of wool around the end and cut off the toes.
- Cut out a nose using the orange craft foam and 2 twig arms using the brown felt.
- Glue on the arms and the carrot nose.
- Lastly, glue on his eyes and buttons – these can be either sequins or buttons.
Egg Box Penguins
What you will need:
- 1 egg box
- Black and white paint
- Googly eyes
- Orange felt/card
Instructions:
- Cut out the empty sections of your egg box and trim the edges to make the penguin body nice and neat.
- Next paint the penguin’s tummy with white paint and paint the rest of the carton black and leave to dry.
- Cut out the penguin feet and beak from orange felt or card.
- Once the paint has dried, glue on the googly eyes, feet and beaks to finish off your Christmas penguin.
Ginger Bread Men
What you will need:
- Writing icing
- Pre-cooked gingerbread men
- Small sweets
- Chocolate chips
- Ready to roll icing
Instructions:
Give your gingerbread men some festive spirit by decorating them with icing and sweets.
- Use the writing icing to decorate and also stick sweets and chocolate chips to the gingerbread men.
- Use the ready to roll icing to make hats and fix with writing icing to the ginger men.
- You can create any design you wish and enjoy eating them afterwards.
Handmade Santa Ornament
What you will need:
- Polystyrene ball
- Paper cup
- Red and pink paint
- Red and white felt
- Small red pompom
- White pompom
- Googly eyes
- Red, black and pink craft foam
- Pink pen
- Glue
Instructions:
- Paint the polystyrene ball pink for the Santa face and the cup red for his body.
- Once the paint has dried glue the ball and the cup together to form your Santa Claus.
- Next cut two arms from the red foam (to match his body) and two hands from the pink foam.
- Stick one hand to the end of each arm and the other ends of the arms to the body.
- Cut a strip of black foam and glue it around the middle of the cup to make a belt.
- Make his hat by rolling the red felt into a cone shape and stick onto the polystyrene ball using the glue.
- Cut a strip of white felt to glue to the edge of the hat and finish the hat with the white pompom.
- Next cut out his beard from the left over white felt and glue this on to his face.
- Glue a little red pompom on to his face for a nose and stick on two googly eye.
- Finally draw a big smile using the pink pen.
Pinecone Christmas Tree
What you will need:
- A pinecone
- Green paint
- Small bottle lid
- Glue
- Sequins and glitter
Instructions:
- First paint the pinecone green and leave to dry.
- Once dry place it on top of the plastic lid and glue in place. (You might want to weight the lid first with playdough or sticky tack)
- Decorate the tree with glitter and sequins, using the glue to stick them on.
Christmas Wreath
What you will need:
- Card
- Sequins in assorted colours
- Hole punch
- Ribbon to hang
- Glue
- Glitter (optional)
Instructions:
- First carefully cut out the wreath from the card. To help, you might want to draw an outer circle and inner circle using different sized glasses or bowls.
- Make a small hole at the top where the ribbon will go so that you can hang your Christmas wreath.
- Next, cover the card in glue and cover with sequins and glitter.
- Leave it to dry for at least 24 hours. Once dry thread the ribbon through the hole and tie in a loop.
Handmade Angel
What you will need:
- Polystyrene ball
- Paper cup
- Pink and white paint
- Yellow wool
- Googly eyes
- White and pink craft foam
- Gold card
- Gold pipe cleaner (chenille stem)
- Pink pen
- Glue
- Sticky tape
Instructions:
- Paint the polystyrene ball pink for the angels face and the cup white for her body and leave to dry.
- Cut out the arms from white felt and her hands from pink felt and stick the hands onto each arm.
- Her hair is made from the yellow wool so cut plenty of pieces all around the same length.
- Her wings are made from the gold card so cut out your angel shaped wings.
- Once the paint has dried glue the polystyrene ball onto the cup to form your angel.
- Add a halo by twisting the pipe cleaner into shape and taping onto the back of her head.
- Glue on the arms, wings, hair and googly eyes.
- Lastly draw on a happy smiling face – you have your beautiful Christmas angel.
Christmas Bauble
What you will need:
- Polystyrene ball
- White, cream and red buttons
- Red ribbon
- Pearl pins
- Extra adult supervision is required
Instructions:
- Pin the buttons on the polystyrene ball by putting a pin through one of the button holes and pushing into ball.
- Repeat this until the ball is completely covered in buttons.
- Finally tie a bow with the ribbon and pin on top of the ball.
With these great Christmas craft ideas you can keep your children busy over the holidays and also make some cheap but tasteful Christmas decorations.
Creativity is a vital ingredient in a child’s personality, it is the heart and soul of their ideas and it inspires them to uncover their potential for greatness. Their creativeness could be the key to their success, all you need to do is help them find it and give them guidance.
We provide a range of Junior Easels that are great for arts and crafts and getting your children to be more creative.
At ELF we are experts in early years’ educational resources and supply school classroom furniture, school library furniture and play equipment to primary schools, pre-schools, nurseries and playgroups.
For more information about our products please contact us or call our sales team on 01733 511121.
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