Heather from HELLO My Name is Heather sent us this fabulous idea

Exercise those right brains with junk-food paper dolls. And, if you enjoy a funky junky Christmas tree as much as I do, hang ‘em on your tree for holiday laughs year after year.

You will need:
Junk-food boxes
Permanent marker
Scissors
Glue
Brads

Optional:
Wire, bells, eyelets, string, buttons, etc.

With a permanent marker, draw body parts on your favorite junk food box, allowing for overlap when the doll is bradded together. Be choosy about the placement of each body part, so it will ‘read’ well when assembled. For best results, be on the lookout for letters and shapes that can help define your character, like the garlic beard on Cheez-It Santa or the letter “O” eyeball on OREO Mama. Assemble doll using petite metal brads. Glue on facial features and clothing embellishments to your heart’s content. If you’d like to hang the doll on your tree, attach a wire loop to the top and you’re all set.

OREO Mama kicked off the craze, then Cheez-It Santa, TV-dinner Scooby-Doo and The Coke Star were all eagerly crafted by my son, Elijah.

Needless to say, these funky junkies are among my favorite Christmas ornaments ever!

Christina from Jam Fancy sent us this quick last-minute ornament craft

You will need:
A board to work on
Toothpicks
Fimo or sculpey
A plate

Roll a ball of each of your Christmas colours of about the same size.

Roll out the balls into thin sausages then twist two colours together. Roll them in to one thin sausage and cut the long piece in roughly in half.

If you are making candy canes form them into the right shape by making a crook at one end.

To make lollipops, roll the sausage in upon itself to make a spiral and flatten out the round shape by pressing it down with you fingers.

Using the blunt end of the toothpick, make a hole in the top of the circle.

With the pointed end of the toothpick, push gently into the bottom of the circle to make the lollipop stick.

Place the canes and lollipops on the plate and follow the instructions on the packets for the cooking times.

Thread up the lollipop and then decorate your tree!

Carly from Moopy & Me sent us this great last minute decorating tip

There is nothing like leaving things to the last minute (that’s the signature style over at the Moopy & Me household), but these place settings will warm up the dinner table with a glow in just a few snips of the scissors. Inspired by the Christmas issue of the Japanese Cotton & Paint magazine, they had similar houses for window decorations.

You will need:
Favourite paper (200-300 gsm)
White paper
Nice pen for writing names (or even easier just type & print)
Glue stick
Paper knife (& cutting matt)
Tea lights
Other fun things for decorating, felt,glitter……

All instructions are on the download:

Lyn from Molly Chicken sent us this great craft idea

A fun project to do with children of any age, if they are to young to sew - use glue instead.

You will need:
White card
Black, white, brown and scraps of yellow and red felt.
Needle and threads or craft glue.
Stick-on googly eyes.

Get the kids to draw around their finger, onto the white card for the basic birdy body shape. The kids I work with always enjoy this bit, and you get some really ‘interesting’ shaped birds. Alternatively use the template provided. Add a large hem allowance for gluing or stitching together, and cut out.

Pin the template to two layers of your felt, and cut out. Now cut the beaks, wings and breasts and if you are making a dove you will need a little red heart.

Stitch/glue the breast or heart and the beak to one of the body pieces.

And then stitch the two body pieces together, sewing your wings into place at the same time.

Stick on the googly eyes and you’re done.

[ These can also be adapted to make the most fabulous ornaments -- see Lyn's post from last year - Ed.]

Kathreen from Whip Up gets us thinking about gifts kids can make

Every year (well for the past 2 years anyway, since my daughter started school), she has wanted to give her friends a gift at Christmas. It is a lovely idea of course, but can be a nightmare to negotiate and plan and organise. Who will get the gifts? How many to give out? Everyone in the class or just the few special friends, and what do you get them? How much do you spend? Can you give lollies to kids these days?

Well whatever your child decides there will be at least a few presents to give out. I think this year we are only doing five, so we can spend a little more time on each one, but if you are going the whole hog and doing 20 + the neighbourhood kids then you had better plan for something simple.

In the past my daughter has made cards and given out little bags of chocolates, and one year she made little beaded bracelets for the girls and leather charm necklaces for the boys. This year she is thinking about button bracelets or salt clay pendants.

Some other cute ideas of things for kids to make for other kids include:

1. Making pendants: try using shrinky dink plastic or polymer clay (fimo, sculpey etc) which can be baked in the oven at home, then thread them onto leather or string.
2. Cards: try making your own stamps using potatoes or erasers to decorate blank cards.
3. Cooking: if your kids love to cook why not help them make shortbread or gingerbread and use fancy cookie cutters to create fun shapes.
4. Drawings: are your kids budding artists, why not get them to turn their drawings into small books bound together with string.
5. Peg people: pegs and paddle pop sticks are great to decorate and draw on, to give personality to, great idea for kids to make some to give their friends.

Hope your kids have fun with these ideas … do you have any others?

Alicia from the always gorgeous Posie Gets Cozy sent along this tutorial

Making a gumdrop wreath is fast, fun, and really easy. These were in Martha Stewart Living a few years ago and I’ve made them several times since. They’re fun to do with kids, and make great gifts for neighbors, teachers, or grandparents.

You will need:
10-inch styrofoam wreath form, either the spongy kind or the hard (extruded) kind.
About three pounds of gumdrops, either the jumbo or the regular sized.
Box of toothpicks.
Masking tape.
12-inch piece of wire to make hanger.

First, you need to wrap a few layers of masking tape around the top of the wreath form, especially if you are using the spongy type of styrofoam. When the wreath is finished it will be quite heavy, so I like to wrap a few layers of tape around the wreath where the hanger will rest to prevent the wire from ripping right through once it is suspending the weight of the gumdrops.

Just wrap the wire and create a loop, twisting the ends of the wire together several times. When you start to place the gumdrops, you will cover the tape and the wire so it will all pretty much disappear.

Then, break a bunch of toothpicks in half. You can use garden pruners for this, or just break them with your fingers. If you’re doing this project with kids, I would get all the toothpicks broken in half for them first; this is not the fun part, and you don’t want anyone getting splinters for Christmas.

You can use either the jumbo gumdrops (which are about an inch in diameter), like these, or the regular ones (about a half-inch). Obviously, if you’re using the jumbo ones you will be done faster, so that may or may not be a good thing for you – optimally, you’ll want to strike that balance between keeping the kids quietly busy or having them get bored and want to go do something else. (Also, there is a certain meditative satisfaction in doing this project, so if you’re stressed out from holiday stuff, this can be a nice calming thing to do with a glass of wine or a cup of hot cocoa after the kids have gone to bed. In that case, I’d go for the small gumdrops. But anyway.) Some grocery stores (like WinCo and Cub Foods in the United States) sell gumdrops in bulk for less than a dollar a pound, so it might be worth calling around to find them. You can also order them on-line from many places; try searching for “bulk gumdrops” (or “spice drops” as they are also called) and see what’s available in your country.

Then you just stick the broken end of the toothpick into the gumdrop, and the pointy end into the wreath. Stagger them so you don’t get any big holes. (You can also paint your wreath form before putting the gumdrops in if having the white peek through will bother you, but it doesn’t bother me so I don’t . . . bother with that.) Keep going around until you’re done (don’t cover the back, obviously). Then tie on a ribbon and hang!

I think they look especially cute in the kitchen, myself.

Have fun!

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!