Volunteering at my children’s school on Wednesday, I caught sight of their handmade Christmas tree in the front entryway, and all the adorably cute-as-a-button crafts they made to display on the tree, to include cute rolled-up paper snowmen, trees and reindeer. They look similar to the one shown to the right, found at www.azlearningbug.com/workshops/crafts/ but are more rolled than this, think Shirley Temple curls, coiled into a circle so that you see the scroll all the way through. We used tape, which the kids taped them closed themselves, and they chose to cut out the eyes, nose and mouth along with buttons, but I like the arms here. We just folded a piece of construction paper into eight equal parts, cut down the fold, let the kids roll up, tape them shut, and then together. Easy, fun AND festive!
Next craft we’re going to do is to make a chandelier for over our dining table, thanks to Derek and Lauren over at Design Sponge for this idea. They say to use an exacto blade, but my kids are a tad too small for that, so we’re using scissors. Here’s what they say you’ll need:
-Various colors of paper or cardstock, cut into 1″ x 11″ strips. We used 5 colors of cardstock plus silver and gold gift wrap.
-X-acto blade
-Metal ruler
-Cutting Mat-Stapler
-Thread or monofilament for hanging
Using your X-acto blade and straight edge, cut a few sheets of each color paper into strips that measure 1″ wide by 11″ long.
Lay out your color combinations. We used 3 colors per ornament, repeating the middle color on the outside of each one.
Cut the center strip down to 6″ long. The following concentric layers will consist of 2 pieces, each measuring 7″, 9″ and 11″, respectively.
Make sure the tops of all the strips are flush, and then staple them together. Then line up the bottom edges on the opposite side, so that they are flush, and place a staple on that end.
Derek and Lauren say they kept it nice and simple, as you can see, and that they clustered theirs above their dining room table, as I plan to do 🙂 In looking at the craft specs, as was stated by them as well, there are a ton of different ways you can do these eye-popping but super simple ornaments by varying the lengths of the strips and altering the placement of staples. I even thought about combining a couple and making some sort of a star of sorts, having them altogether. Can you picture that? How pretty would that be?
Lastly, I took the plunge and decided, since we started accumulating more of those pesky plastic shopping bags (it seems we need more canvas, that we’re beginning to outgrow our stash), to make something out of them. Enter in the Recycled Christmas Wreath, complete with excess bow, broken ornaments and maybe even a little greenage from neighbors trimmed trees? The very smart and crafty Rita and Shellie Wilson over at Craft Bits had a variation of what I did, and even using colored plastic bags (here ours are only white). They cut the bag in stripes and tied them to the hanger, whereas I, somewhat lazy I suppose, just tied the bags on, making a poofier effect, but I kinda like what they did better 🙂
So what crafty things have you been doing for the holiday? What ideas do you have in store? Are you making recycled crafts at all? Please share what you’re doing, there can never be enough crafts! 🙂
How great is this! I’m going to do that chandelier one. Your timing is great. I just got an email from a friend asking to get together to do Christmas crafts! Thank you!! And have fun!
These look great! Thank you so much for sharing these pictures.I for one love doing arts and crafts with my kids. It’s craft night almost every night of the week in our household, and the place may be kind of a mess, but seeing how excited my kids get when they make something makes all the paint stains and sticky glue spots worth it. 🙂The place has been a little more clean, as of late, however, because my boys have become obsessed with something called Kabillion’s Little Director.It’s a kid-friendly online sketchbook you can find at http://www.kabillion.com/littledirector. All the tools are there for my boys to draw whatever’s in their imagination. The pictures can even be taken a step further and turned into complete animations, with music, voiceovers and everything!You can even buy your child’s masterpiece on DVD. My boys’ latest cartoon will make a great Christmas gift for my inlaws. They’ll love it! I only know about this because I work with Kabillion, but I’m so happy to share this with my children!
Awesome Kelly Jene! Enjoy!Michael, such a great site! My children will LOVE this idea! Nice to have you visit, please visit again!