Christmas crafts for kids
In the lead up to Christmas, common family activities are an integral part of the Christmas traditions. These can be baking cookies, a cosy game evening, or making Christmas crafts with the children. When it’s snowing and bitterly cold outside, pass the time together and create things like greeting cards or beautiful Christmas decorations. Then you can decorate the Christmas tree or the presents with the works of art that you have crafted with your children. Of course, you can also give the lovingly designed Christmas decorations to friends and family.
In this article, we’ll show you some ideas for making Christmas crafts with your children – ranging from crafting with toddlers to upcycling DIY ideas, you will find lots of different instructions here.
Contents
Making Christmas crafts with small kids
Children love being creative and making their own ideas into Christmas decorations. Even with younger children, you can create beautiful and individual works of art and use these to decorate your apartment or Christmas tree. To keep you inspired with craft ideas this Christmas, we have put together a few instructions and suggestions for making Christmas crafts with smaller kids.
Christmas craft idea for younger children: Crafts with handprints
Small children love to experiment with colours while making their crafts. They love to explore new materials or simply create completely new figures with scissors and glue. We have based our Christmas craft ideas for younger kids on handprints. You can either: Outline your hand or your child’s hand with a pen. Or you coat your palms with finger paint and leave the handprints on the craft cardboard. After you’ve cut out your handprints, you can turn them into little Christmas artworks in no time!
Christmas crafts instructions 1: How to make funny Christmas figures
What should not be missing at Christmas? Of course, it’s Santa Claus and his helping elves! You can design these yourself easily from your handprints and hang them on the Christmas tree or make a fun garland.
To make jolly Santa figures, you will need the following materials:
- Craft cardboard in beige or finger paint in beige
- Acrylic or watercolour paint in green, red & white
- white cotton
- small red pompoms
- wobbly eyes
- red pencil & black fineliner
For both figures you need a handprint on beige cardboard or in beige colour. It looks especially nice when you create a Santa Claus from your handprint and your child makes many little Christmas elves from his or her handprints.
For Santa Claus, turn the handprint over so that the fingers are pointing towards you and paint all fingers except the thumb with white paint. Paint the thumb and the upper side of the palm in red. Now pluck some cotton wool and shape the moustache, the bobble of the hat and the white brim of the Christmas hat. Put a red pompom nose on the moustache, stick on two wobbly eyes and Santa Claus is ready.
For the Christmas elf, paint your index, middle and ring fingers with green paint. Then take the white cotton wool again and form three balls and stick them to the tip of the three green fingers. Now pluck an elongated sausage with the white cotton wool and create the brim of the funny elf hat. Lastly, add the two wobbly eyes and the pompom nose. With the black fineliner, paint your elf a cheeky grin and finally give him cute little cheeks with the red pencil.
With a little creativity, you can adapt our instructions to the age of your child. If the idea seems too complicated, you can support your child with the crafts by doing the more difficult tasks. If you think that an idea is too easy, you can add more details and make it more sophisticated.
With a little creativity, you can adapt our instructions to the age of your child. If the idea seems too complicated, you can support your child with the crafts by doing the more difficult tasks. If you think that an idea is too easy, you can add more details and make it more sophisticated.
Christmas crafts instructions 2: How to make a cute reindeer
For this cute Christmas craft idea for kids we have made a template in our Craft PDF for you to use. Once you have printed out the cut-out sheet, you can either colour in the reindeer’s head or cut out the face and outline the individual parts such as nose, eyes, pupils, etc. on colourful cardboard. Either way, all that needs to be made are two handprints made on brown cardboard or with brown paint. Stick these on the head of the reindeer, to create a unique antler.
You can use the cute reindeer either as a decoration or send it as an invitation or greeting card to friends and family.
Christmas crafts instructions 3: How to make a unique Christmas wreath
For this unique craft idea, you will also need a lot of handprints which will then be put together into a Christmas wreath. It’s perfect for hanging on the door or window as a decoration and spread a cosy Christmas atmosphere.
Here’s how:
Take light and dark green cardboard and make a total of 22 handprints. Next, draw a large circle with a compass and arrange the handprints around the circle. They don’t all have to be neatly together. It also looks great when the fingers are a little more sporadic. When you are happy with how it looks, glue the individual parts together. If you would like to design your homemade Christmas wreath with an even more personal touch, you can make baubles out of coloured paper with your children or cut out a small mistletoe on our cut-out sheet.
Christmas crafts with children: How to make crafts with natural materials
Making crafts with natural materials is a beautiful and sustainable way of creating Advent crafts. You can prepare for this in autumn by collecting pinecones, chestnuts, twigs, nuts and the like and let them dry. In the lead up to Christmas, you can make cute Christmas decorations out of them with your children.
For example, you can paint pinecones in bright colours and use them as decorations for the Advent wreath or the Christmas tree. Or you make miniature Christmas trees out of cones painted green. Cones in gold and silver are also really eye-catching. If you want to create a forest with little homemade Christmas trees, use smaller cones to make cute gnomes or a Santa Claus. All you need is a small wooden ball and some felt. You can create a small gnome village in the Christmas forest.
You can also use the little Christmas trees and gnomes made of pinecones for the “Beautiful winter landscape” craft idea.
You can also use the little Christmas trees and gnomes made of pinecones for the “Beautiful winter landscape” craft idea.
Upcycling Christmas craft ideas for kids
The basic idea of upcycling is to “Make new from old”. With a few tricks, you can create beautiful, new decorative items out of old stuff that you can enjoy for many years to come. These special craft ideas are a creative way to show children that we can reuse or repurpose things if we think outside the box.
How to make Christmas decorations: Make a beautiful winter landscape
You will need a box for this Christmas craft. You can use a shoebox, a shipping box, a gift box, or an old plastic or wooden box. Together with your children and with the help of a few materials, you can transform this inconspicuous box into a beautiful winter landscape.
To make the winter landscape, you will need the following materials:
- an old box
- a LED light (old if possible)
- white cotton
- Acrylic paints in either white & blue
- decorations such as small animals, trees, etc.
- Additionally: an old T-shirt in dark blue or black, or craft cardboard
Instructions:
- Start by making holes in the back of the box for the LED light chain. Use either a narrow screwdriver or the tip of a compass. If the cardboard box or wooden box is too thick, then use a cordless screwdriver with a small wood drill bit. Drill through the back wall from the inside so that the unclean side of the hole on the back of the box is not visible. The holes should not be so big that the LEDs can poke through the holes. This will save you the additional glueing of the light chain on the back of the box. It is safer to do this step yourself if you are working with young children.
- Paint the back wall blue and the sides white. Let the box dry for a few hours. You can also paint a mountain or forest landscape on the back wall. To create a 3D effect with the landscape, make a gap between the back wall and the landscape by adding a strip of thick cardboard.
- Optional step: Line the back wall of the box with fabric. Make sure that the fabric is not too thick so that the light from the lamps can still shine through. Let the fabric fall loosely over the LEDs and fasten it with a hot glue gun. This will pleasantly dim the light.
- Now thread the lights through the holes and glue the battery compartment to the back of the box. If the cable protrudes or is visible from the front, you can fix it with tape.
- Now place your figures and little trees in the box. When you are happy with how it looks, glue it in place with hot glue and cover the rest of the floor with cotton wool.
There are no limits to your creativity when it comes to creating this landscape. For this upcycling idea, it would be nice if you use old figures and toys and breathe new life into them.
When you attach the LED, make sure that it is not connected to a power supply, to avoid accidents. You should not allow the plug or the box for the battery to get wet.
When you attach the LED, make sure that it is not connected to a power supply, to avoid accidents. You should not allow the plug or the box for the battery to get wet.
Craft idea for Christmas: How to make cute snowmen out of old flower pots
At the end of the gardening season, you may find a few flower pots that are no longer needed. Instead of letting it gather dust, you and your child can make a cheeky snowman out of it for Christmas. This funny fellow can sit on the windowsill with his little hanging legs or let his feet dangle from a shelf. He would also make the perfect gift for grandparents. We have created step-by-step instructions including a cut-out sheet to help you make the perfect snowman.
If several pots have accumulated over time, with a little imagination, you can create a Santa Claus or Christmas elf out of them. Just let your creativity run free!
If you’re hooked on making crafts, put our creative ideas into practice right away and decorate your apartment with new Christmas decorations. Just let your creative juices flow when you’re bringing these ideas to life. For example, choose other colours or experiment with different materials. We wish you a lot of fun doing crafts with your children during the Christmas season!
