15 Fun & Easy Christmas Crafts For Kids To Do at Home

The Christmas break isn’t a long one, but dark, cold December days have a way of keeping children indoors, and that experience can be summed up in two words: cabin fever. Use these easy Christmas crafts for kids to keep them busy and to get them into the seasonal spirit.

1. Create a Christmas Card Camp Site (for Pretend Play)

 

Have you ever noticed, that Christmas cards make such great tents? Use new cards, or even better yet, recycled Christmas cards. Create a camp site, fill it with little lego figurines or other toys and watch your kids’ imaginations light up. The perfect pretend play activity for toddlers on a cold, winter’s eve. Don’t forget the hot cocoa!

See more Christmas craft and pretend play ideas at MumsCreativeCupboard.

2. Pinecone Christmas Trees

If you live in an area where pinecones are readily available, take your children on a walk to collect a few, and then use coloured paints to turn them into unbelievably cute mini Christmas trees. Let your children start by painting the cones green. When the paint’s dry, they can use other colours to add decorations and a dusting of snow.

Use their pinecone Christmas trees to decorate your mantlepiece, bedside tables, or coffee table, or ask your children to make several as little gifts for those who come for dinner.

Get the full tutorial on Pjs and Paint.

3. Glittery Foil Icicles

Is Jack Frost taking his sweet time? These aluminium foil icicles are a delightful way to bring a bit of winter wonderland to your tree (or anywhere else you choose to hang them). Give your children some foil, glitter, glue, and silver cord, and then use an easy tutorial to guide them in making their own sparkly icicles.

Get the full tutorial on Kids Craft Room.

4. Salt Dough Christmas Ornaments

Easy to make and easy to work with, salt dough is perfect for making ornaments for the Christmas tree. It’s also unbelievably versatile, which means your children can make basic cookie-cutter shapes if they’re younger, and more advanced projects such as photo frame ornaments if they’re older.

You’ll need all-purpose flour, salt, water, paint, paintbrushes, and ribbon for the salt dough Christmas ornaments. Use a straw to poke holes for the ribbon in the ornaments before baking the ornaments, or attach ribbon to the baked, cooled ornaments using a hot glue gun.

Get the recipe and tutorial for salt dough Christmas ornaments on Wholefully.

5. Grinch Christmas Slime

More than 50 years after it was published, How the Grinch Stole Christmas still is one of the most popular children’s seasonal storybooks. If your kids loved hearing about the grumpy resident of Mount Crumpit who gets into the spirit of the festive season, they’ll be thrilled to make and play with their very own Grinch-inspired slime. You’ll need Elmer’s Clear Glue, liquid starch, water, green food colouring, green glitter, and a red heart charm.

Follow this tutorial on I Heart Arts and Crafts to make the slime.

6. Christmassy Treat Bags

What’s a Christmas party without bags of treats to hand to your guests when they leave? Bring a touch of whimsy to it by getting your kids to craft Christmassy treat bag toppers. They’re easy and inexpensive to make, but they do take a bit of time (not that anyone will complain).

Your children will need cardstock in different colours, craft glue, a stapler, and store-bought treat bags. As you can see from the instructions, the same basic shapes can be turned into a variety of Christmas characters.

Get the full tutorial and printouts on The Homes I Have Made.

7. Beaded Candy Canes

Striped candy canes are a quintessential Christmas accessory. However, if you’ve ever used real ones, you’ll know that they can lead to sticky fingers and unwelcome six-legged visitors. Keep your kids’ hands busy with these cute, beaded candy canes. They’re nice and easy to make, and all that’s needed are green pipe cleaners and red and white pony beads.

Get the full tutorial on Foutain Avenue Kitchen.

8. Cardboard Christmas Trees

Sometimes it’s the simplest things in life that delight children. Let their imaginations run wild with these easy cardboard Christmas trees. You’ve probably got everything you need at home, and if you don’t, that’s nothing a quick trip to the supermarket or stationery shop can’t sort out.

Cut pieces of cardboard into Christmas tree shapes, and then let your children decorate them with paint, string, pieces of straws, dry pasta shapes, glitter, bits of tinsel, foil, and glittery pompoms. If they make several trees, you can string them together and hang them up as a festive banner.

Get the full tutorial on the Art Bar blog.

9. Handmade Christmas Cards

There’s something undeniably charming about handmade cards, especially when they’re Christmas cards that have been made by children. Card stock’s the starting point, and from there, your kids can use paint, glue, glitter, pens, coloured paper, foil, buttons, and all sorts of bits ‘n bobs to craft gorgeous cards for family and friends.

Take a look at these handmade Christmas card design ideas to get them started.

10. Ice Lolly Stick Crafts

Wooden ice lolly sticks of different sizes, pompoms, googly eyes, craft paper, buttons, ribbon, pipe cleaners, scissors, and glue are all your kids need to create Christmassy characters and scenes. Find out how your children can do it by following this tutorial on The Keeper of the Cheerios.

You can hang the completed scenes on your tree, position them on the mantlepiece, or hang them near your front door (indoors) to offer a cheery welcome. If your children add name tags to their crafts, you can use them as seating indicators at your Christmas table.

11. Christmas Card Baubles

If you have a stash of cards from Christmases past or a pack of charity cards, let your kids put them to good use by turning them into colourful baubles for your tree. Other than old Christmas cards, your kids will need a pencil, a ruler, scissors, a blunt knife for scoring, a punch, a stapler, eyelets, and thread or ribbon.

Find the tutorial and the printable bauble template on Things to Make and Do.

12. A Sock Snowman

The problem with real snowmen is that you can’t bring them indoors (well, you can, but the clean-up won’t be fun). These sock snowmen are the next best thing, as they don’t require snow, carrots, coal, or even a sewing needle, which makes them perfect for little hands. What your kids will require are white socks, coloured socks, rice, thread or rubber bands, colourful buttons and ribbon, pompoms, markers or craft paint, and a glue gun.

Find out how to make these cute no-sew sock snowmen craft on Easy Peasy and Fun.

13. Plastic Cup Angel Lights

Christmas just isn’t the same without twinkling lights and angels. Let your kids combine those two themes by making delightful angel LED tea light holders. They’ll need clear plastic cups, coloured permanent markers, crayons, a pen, white paper, scissors, clear sticky tape, and one or two LED tea lights per angel (do not be tempted to use candles – you don’t want to burn down the house).

As you can see from these instructions on Molly Moo Crafts, making cup angel luminaries is oh-so-easy.

14. Yarn-Wrapped Christmas Tree Decorations

If your kids can’t get enough of decorating trees, they can make and embellish mini trees which can be used as ornaments on the main one, or you can hang them up in other places around your house. They’ll need sturdy cardboard, green yarn, multicoloured pompoms in different sizes, white school glue, and scissors. These instructions show you how easy these yarn-wrapped Christmas crafts for kids can be.

15. Twiggy Reindeer Ornaments

Forget about the figgy pudding – these twiggy reindeer ornaments are what you want! They’re uncomplicated, unbelievably cute, and don’t require a ton of crafting equipment. Your kids can collect twigs in the garden, the park, or the woods, and they can use googly eyes, a red button, ribbon or twine, scissors, and craft glue to turn them into the cutest red-nosed reindeer you’ve ever seen. Check out this tutorial on Fireflies and Mudpies to learn how to do it.

Keep your kids entertained and enhance the festive feeling all in one. Pick any of these crafts or do them all in the lead up to December 25th!