Andrea from Hula Seventy kindly sent us this holiday idea

Hello, I’m Andrea from Hula Seventy and would like to thank Claire for allowing me to share some of our family fun with you today.

For those of you out there who find yourself playing a constant game of catch-up with advent activities, I offer The Christmas Fun Jar. Although we absolutely love the advent activity calendars here at our house, we have decided to shake things up a bit this holiday season. The Fun Jar is actually something we put together each summer– we write fun things we want to do (big and small) onto strips of paper, throw them into a recycled jar (which we then decorate) and pull from it when things get a little nutty around the house. A perfect fit for the season, yes? The great thing about The Jar is that you can pick from it at any time, as often as you like– once a week, once a day, once an hour. You can wait until the week right before Christmas to construct your own, if you like. Anything goes! But the best part is that The Fun Jar eventually becomes a lantern. When you have emptied it, place a candle inside and the art work glows– a lovely thing to do on Christmas Eve. And a little bit of magic, I say.

You will need:
A glass jar
Colored tissue paper
White paper
Kid-safe scissors
Glue sticks
Crayons, markers, colored pencils
Glitter (optional)
Votive candles

1. Decorate the jar. Cut up and/or tear pieces of tissue paper and glue them onto the jar, collage-style. Squares, rectangles, hearts, Christmas trees,stars– again, anything goes. We also chose to cover the entire jar (which you may or may not want to do). The idea behind using tissue paper (as opposed to regular and/or construction paper) is the transparency allows for beautiful glowing when the candle is placed inside. Also, this is something that almost everyone can do. My son Ezra (who is 2 1/2) had an absolute ball smearing the glue stick on larger pieces of tissue paper and sticking them onto the jar. My daughter Ava (age 6) really got into creating Christmas-themed shapes and scenarios.

2. Put the finishing touches on the collage with crayons, markers and glitter. We also added a ‘Christmas Fun Jar’ label with construction paper. A little glitter was sprinkled here and there. Just for fun.

3. Put together the contents of the jar. Find a comfortable place to sit and generate ideas as a family. Everyone gets to contribute! It’s not a bad idea to have a list of ideas on hand to get the ball rolling (there are plenty of suggestions here at Kiddley, see this previous post). Write what you’d like to do on small sheets of paper, fold them up and throw them in the jar. When finished, place your magnificently decorated Christmas Fun Jar in a special location (mantles are nice) and let the fun begin!

4. Finally, it helps to be prepared for all that spontaneity. After we finished making our jar, I went back through and made a list of all the supplies we would need to have on hand. Also, as mama and chief Christmas Fun Jar maker, I reserve the right to pull a couple of the slips of paper from the jar (those with the more special activities written on them) and return them when I feel the time is right (a couple of days before Christmas, perhaps?)– feel free to do the same. There’s no shame in that.

And now, The Christmas Fun Jar is calling you. I hear it calling, I really do. And I’m hoping you’ll return with some lovely stories to tell.

Fiona from Hop Skip Jump sent us this beautifully simple Christmas idea

This Christmas, I thought we might try making some simple cut paper garlands. It’s such an easy, fun craft that has a very festive result, and something that works well for kids of all ages. Older children could tackle the entire project by themselves, while younger kids will probably need help with cutting and threading.

We made a couple of different garlands: one constructed from decorated paper and cardstock, and another made from plain white card which was enthusiastically decorated with lots of glitter, sequins and confetti by my three year old.

You will need:
2 x A3 sized sheets of card stock
Decorations (patterned paper, glitter, confetti, sequins, fabric, buttons, etc)
Hole punch
Glue
String
Scissors

Trace or print your desired shapes onto the cardstock.

There’s a downloadable template below if you don’t have time to make your own.

If you’re going to be decorating your garland with patterned paper only (like the bird one in the photos here), it’s best to glue your paper to the card before cutting. Once your shapes are cut out, decorate as desired and arrange vertically. When you’re satisfied with how it looks, punch holes at the top and base of each shape (except the base of the lowest hanging shape) and loop together with short lengths of string. Hang and enjoy!

Alison from Six and A Half Stitches kindly sent us this great tutorial 

I have been wanting to make little papier-mâché Piñatas for such a long time after seeing them on Not Martha, and Christmas seems like the perfect time to make these little balls filled with sweets or toys. They are easy to make with young ones, and fun to find fillings for. Children will enjoy pulling them apart and seeing what’s inside, and everyone will enjoy making them and seeing them hung up around fireplaces, on trees, or clustered on a door or shelf.

With a simple flour and water paste* mixed to a smooth gloopy consistency and papier-mâché strips of tissue paper around semi blown up balloons of about 10-15cm diameter.

Leave a gap around the top as your opening – enough to get goodies inside.

Leave to dry till the case is hard, and then deflate the balloon by pricking it or cutting it with scissors (it won’t pop, but will let air out slowly as it removes itself from the inside of the papier-mâché case).

Once you have the empty shell, you can fill with whatever you like – small bags of sweets, toys, biscuits, glitter or cut out pieces of paper, small puzzles to put together, or even write out your own jokes to tell.

Then take another piece of tissue paper and a length of ribbon and seal the opening with more flour/water paste.

Have fun decorating! Finally add a small tag to the ribbon which says ‘Pull Me’ to help open.

Pull open, and enjoy!

* For those with gluten or wheat allergies, the following alternatives to wheat flour can be used: Tapioca flour, rice flour. Experiment with other flours to see if they work, or alternatively use a white paste with PVA craft glue watered down, however I tried here to limit the amounts of glue being used in the whole project. You may want to add some salt to the paste to prevent mould as well.

Heidi From My Paper Crane sent us this tutorial for how to make a pom-pom garland

A very simple and fun project for the little ones is making a pom-pom garland. All you need is a big pack of pom-poms, a needle, and some heavy thread or fishing line.

Parents will need to thread the needle (for smaller kids you may want to knot both ends together rather then leaving a tail) The tail part sometimes will confuse smaller children and the thread will keep slipping back through the needle.

Cut your thread (doubled if you tying the ends together) as long as you’d like your garland to be. Poke the needle through the center of a pom and then slide the pom all the way to the knotted end. If your child has trouble with the needle, you can always poke the pom and then let your child slide the pom-pom down.

Finish off the end of the garland with a nice big knot to keep the poms from slipping off. You can use the garland for a Christmas tree, or just a pretty decoration for whenever!

Stephanie from Little Birds Handmade kindly sent us this seasonal craft 

December 13th is Santa Lucia Day! You can read more about how Santa Lucia is celebrated in Scandinavia here. We decided to create our own versions of the candle crown traditionally worn by the eldest daughter as well as a star hat like those worn by boys in Santa Lucia processions.

You will need:
White card stock or heavy paper for crown and candles.
Green craft paper cut into leaf shapes (depending on the age of the child, you may want to cut out the leaf shapes ahead of time).
Red craft paper cut or punched into small circles for berries.
Orange/yellow craft paper cut into flame shapes.
Glitter.
Glue.

Santa Lucia Crown

1. Cut a two inch wide strip of paper long enough to wrap around the child’s head. Have child glue leaf shapes to cover the crown and decorate with red berries.

2. Add glitter to flame shapes. Cut strips of white card stock as candles (we made six candles for our crown). Glue flame to candle and candles to crown.

3. Fit crown around head and fasten at back with glue or staples.

4. Play Santa Lucia!

Boy’s Lucia Procession Hat

1. Create a tall cone hat from white card stock. Glue or staple closed.

2. Cut star shaped from card stock and decorate with silver or gold glitter.

3. Glue stars to hat.

4. Ta-da!

More Santa Lucia Links:

Santa Lucia Day in Sweden

Recipe for Santa Lucia Braided Bread

Listen to the traditional Santa Lucia song

Alicia’s tutorial for Santa Lucia dolls

Happy Santa Lucia Day!

Sarah from The Small Object Sent us this paper doll and ornament idea

Around our house, we have fabric scraps, paper bits and ribbon remnants lying about on tables and in bins which are far too enticing for little hands. And given the number of requests for drawing a princess, Nanny McPhee, Harry Potter and Mommy, I needed a paper doll. It’s perfect since you can make it into anything by adding ponytails,crown, bows, buttons,glasses and then color or collage on some bits.

Lately, the big thing has been taping down a piece of fabric to give them blankets, cause they get cold, you know.

As gifts, we also xerox a big stack of them and staple or bind them together to make a doll coloring book and then include an original drawing and a little bag of scraps.

Not to stop the fun, we love it so much I shrunk it down and made them into doll ornaments for the tree.

We’re set! Download and get your glue handy.

(Share, give + download to your hearts desire! Just please don’t go selling them or some other equally insane commercial idea. Thanks!)

Kathreen from Whipup sent along this post on gifts

Every Christmas I love to prepare a small gift for my friends’ and cousins’ children. There is about 20 children involved in this plan so needless to say the gifts must be cheap and easy (hence the title of this post). In the past I have made library bags, small soft pillows with a simple applique pattern, singlets or t-shirts with applique, in the years I didn’t have time to make something I found educational items to be good value, like drawing books with crayons or silver pencils (black note books with silver pencils are excellent or also fat multicoloured pencils are fun too). This year if I had the time I would make little aprons with a wooden spoon in the pocket, but instead I have organised some wooden puzzles and craft kits that I found in bulk on ebay.

Here are some more suggestions (do you have any ideas?) for cheap but good gifts for lots of kids at once.

1. Make something that you know you can make lots of quickly and that will still be good quality (like aprons, bags or cushions), you might be quick at knitting kids beanies or beading bracelets or keyrings.
2. Bargain bulk buys on ebay or your local discount store, such as jigsaw puzzles, educational games, colouring in books, craft kits etc.
3. Make up collage crafting kits of your own – get 20 or so ziplock bags and fill it with collage materials, fancy papers, paddlepop sticks and pipe cleaners, box of crayons or pencils, glue stick and child scissors and small notebook.
4. Learn a craft kit: is your thing knitting or crochet: then get an easy pattern and instructions copy it 20 times, purchase 20 cheap knitting needles or crochet hooks and buy some colourful yarn enough to make the pattern. You can do the same thing if your craft is beading, sewing or printmaking.
5. If you are good at drawing why not draw some simple pictures suitable for colouring in and photocopy or print a few copies and bind together with simple ring binding at your local printer. You might want to include blank pages and activity pages like dot-to-dots and complete-the-picture (eg. my kids love to fill in expressions on blank faces).

Now available at Cafe Press are these two designs on all manner of gear – including kids’ and women’s t-shirts and kids’ hoodies, mugs and bags… get in quick to order stuff for the holidays!

Kiddley: I Made it Myself Store

Kiddley: Crafty Girl Store

Kiddley reader Aoife Clifford kindly sent in this great snowflake craft idea

There is nothing so much like Christmas as white snowflakes, even in Australia. As my children are one and three Christmas is still a work in progress as we introduce old family traditions to them and they think of new traditions for us. Last year all my eldest wanted from Santa Claus was snow (this year he wants a REAL magic wand not a toy one!). A little tricky so I bought a whole heap of tissue paper and cut snowflakes out in the hope that it would be enough. There are plenty of patterns on the internet . I used the Martha Stewart Kids pattern which coincidentally is craft of the week at the moment. Luckily he liked them but as he was only two I did have to hang them out of his reach for fear his dream could be ripped up in about 30 seconds. You could make them out of any sort of paper but I like the look of tissue paper.

This year we are doing it all again but I had a revelation of making them out of vilene from my sewing shop. It looks just like tissue paper but is much stronger – people use it for making patterns with because it is very hard to rip – so really is ideal for crafting with kids. Most sewing shops and craft shops would have equivalents. It cost about $1.50 AUS a metre. I am most fond of the plain snowflake but my kids, like most, seem to channel Versace in their decorating and demand enough glitter to make a glam rocker blush. Vilene will withstand all the glitter, stickers, glue and paint that your kids will literally throw at it.

For younger crafters like my two I’m in charge of the cutting and they the colouring. For really wee ones, like my 16 month old, I got her to decorate the square first and then cut out the snowflake afterwards.

We tend to stick our snowflakes up on our windows but you can make garlands, wreaths, tree decorations, stick them on presents and cards and even use them as a stencil for decorating cakes with icing sugar or cocoa as our last picture shows.

What’s even better is that I think these snowflakes will actually make it to Christmas next year as well – so you can keep on adding to your decorations each year with some new varieties.

Amber from the sensational Kids Craft Weekly sent us this wonderful idea

For my first guest post I thought I’d write about how to make your own Christmas crackers – with a fun twist! Once you’ve discovered the joy of these handmade crackers you’re unlikely to go back to the commercial variety. In fact, these are so popular at our place that we’ve had to incorporate them into our birthday celebrations also.

The idea behind these crackers is that once they’ve been pulled apart, you get busy constructing your own Christmas hat using the items found within. The only rule is that you have to use *all* of the contents of your cracker. The hat construction materials include a sheet of tissue paper and some rubber bands, plus a colourful selection of bits and bobs for embellishing the hat. For a bit of a challenge it’s fun to add some crazy miscellany – in this example I’ve used a small plastic horse and a medallion of Kevin Federline.

If you have a sit down family meal this holiday season, crazy hat crackers are a great way to keep the little people (and the big ones) occupied between courses.

You will need:

For the crackers

Crepe paper
Cardboard
Paper towel roll
Scissors
Sticky tape
Ribbon or rafia
Bits and bobs to decorate

For the crazy hats

Tissue paper
Rubber bands
Feathers
String
Ribbon
Paperclips
Stickers
Crazy miscellany

1. Cut your cardboard into 15 cm (6 inch) squares and then cut your crepe paper into rectangles, roughly 36 x 18 cm (14 x 7 inches).

2. Roll up the cardboard into cylinders and fasten with stickytape. To get all your rolls the same size, use a paper towel roll as a guide. Once you’ve created a cylinder for each person, cut your paper towel roll in half. These two smaller rolls will be used to keep the ends of the crackers in place while you’re folding them.

3. Place a cracker cylinder and your two short rolls onto a piece of crepe paper – then roll it all up.

4. Fasten the crepe paper with double-sided tape. Then make a twist at one end (between the cylinder and one of the short rolls) to seal off one end of the cracker. Tie the end with a ribbon and insert your cracker contents through the open end.

5. Twist and fasten the open end of the cracker, trim off the ends to even them up and embellish as you wish.

6. When the time comes to pull the crackers, get creative in your hat making skills and have fun spending time with family and friends!