What’s the Christmas gift that you can give your child but Santa can’t?
Creativity, problem solving skills, and confidence, for starters. The festive season is the perfect time to involve your kids in DIY projects that are easy and delightful to do.
Kids develop artistic and spatial recognition skills as well as an independence that comes from making things instead of buying them off the shelf.
Plus, there’s a certain joy in cutting up crisp sheets of paper, getting gum all over your fingers, and the messiness of mixing the paints; it reminds parents of their own childhood.
So grab your craft box, old paints and a pair of scissors, and let’s get started.
Christmas cards
Instead of the usual crayon drawings, kids can go all out with paints, buttons and sequins.
How about pasting buttons of various sizes into a long triangle, and then topping it off with a star to make a Christmas tree?
If you’re running short on buttons, just use the few that you do have as Christmas globes and sketch the rest of your card. If you prefer Santa on the cover, just rip up two strips of white paper, as well as one each of pink and red, and paste them as in the image below.
The ideas can be as many and as different as snowflakes!
photo credit: scribbleblog.com & Katescreativespace.com
Presents
There’s nothing like the personal touch when it comes to making a gift special.
Those who love snow globes will cherish one that’s made with a mason jar. Just add wads of cotton to the base, followed by a pine tree and a snowman or reindeer.
For the snowflakes add glitter or shredded tinsel, screw the lid on tight, and voila!
You could also jazz up small candle holders by tying them up with satin ribbons of different colours and prints.
Leftover decorations, meanwhile, can be stitched onto wide satin ribbons to make bookmarks.
photo credit: countryliving.com
Decorations
Angels are pretty additions and really simple to make. Just make paper fans with two sheets of white paper, and pin them together.
Add a big bead or a paper cut-out for the head, and your Christmas angel is complete. For Christmas balls, all you have to do is thread a string through a sponge ball and pin either small buttons or sequins to it.
Our favourite though, is the snowman made out of bottle caps. Simply stick three caps to a ribbon, and paint on a face and buttons. Tie a piece of ribbon or wool for the scarf, and you’re done!
photo credit: pinterest.com, caughtonawhim.com and oneartsymama.com
Shumee, of course, has his own take on Christmas DIY projects. Check out www.facebook.com/shumee.in/ for his adventures.