Fun christmas crafts on a budget??

[monkeymama]

anyone have any suggestions of fun crafts that are inexpensive? today we made snowflakes out of doilies and the kids colored them...

i am not the most crafty person but my dck love them so i am really trying to make an effort this season.... however $$ is particularly tight for me right now and im having a hard time finding things that are inexpensive for 5 dck and 2 of my own...

any ideas welcome!

[apples and bananas]

I do a lot of dollar store shopping... googley eyes... pipe cleaners... paper plates... paper bag puppets... hand prints made into santa, reindeer, etc. Snowmen made out of cotton balls with googly eyes. I think the cheaper the better... it teaches them to use their imagionation.

[playfelt]

My crafts for December are ornaments so little things. But we use stuff around the house too such as podgy and christmas stikers onto metal juice lids and a string on the back. Cut ornament shapes from craft foam and give them pieces of the peel and stick craft foam to put on - I save the bits from doing other stuff and then just cut them into random shapes for this kind of thing. I peel and they stick. Give them a page with three circles printed on it for them to colour and then cut out and help them fold in half and glue back to back to back to make a 3D ornament - works well with a tree or bell shape. Cut a star from gold bristolboard and use glitter glue to put gobs on it - not a fan of letting them have regular glitter because it is dangerous as they don't understand not to rub their eyes. All of these things are simple and cheap but I get tins or baskets from the dollar store to put them all in. I keep what we make here "to dry" as the kids are told and give them a picture to colour that gives them something to take home. I print up a pile of christmas pictures and let each one choose which one they want to do.

[gcj]

one of my favourites and my daughter`s all-time favourite is bow wreaths. I make a circle like a wreath out of cereal boxes and then the kids stick on a bunch of gift bows. Make a small hole and a piece of ribbon to hang it and voila! Just don`t make it too big if you don`t want to use a full bag of bows on one wreath! :p

[playfelt]

One I am hoping to do is to colour rice green and then cut wreath shapes from cardstock - they will just paint the wreath with glue then turn it upside down in the dish of rice. Then glue on a bow tied from ribbon. It will only be about 4" across so still small enough to go on the tree.

If it goes over well then doing the same with red and making a bell is a possibility too. Then when done mix whatever rice is left and another day do ornament shapes.

Means cost for three crafts is two cups of rice and a dab of food colouring/alchol.

[playfelt]

If you spray glue two pieces of coloured cardstock together you get a much stiffer base to cut things like socks out of. Then let them colour with crayons/markers as desired and glue a dab of cotton batting to top as cuff. Do a bell and attach a real jingle bell to the bottom. Do two trees and slit each from botom up halfway. Then push together to make a tree that will stand up.

[Momof4]

I bought a garland at Dollarama and cut it into 5 pieces. Then I cut out enough cardstock pieces to look like Christmas tree lightbulbs and the children spelled out their names on it to add it to the garland. Somebody posted it on pinterest. Google 'Christmas crafts for toddlers' and you'll get tons of ideas.

[monkeymama]

thanks everyone! we are going to the library tomorrow for story time and craft but i am going to start researching some ideas online tomorrow....ugh i am so not creative! lol

[playfelt]

Just saw an idea in an email I got. Take a piece of the peel and stick glitter foam. Cut it to fit the inside of a clear lid off a food container. Take other pieces of peel and stick foam to decorate your ornament. The glitter foam is what makes it special since it is sparkly. And a no glue activity too. Just poke a hole in the top for the ribbon.

I plan to adapt this to cardboard. If you didn't want to use a plastic lid you could use a stiff piece of cardboard - even from a food package. Glue to the printed side of the cardboard so the plain side becomes the back. Let them decorate the back with crayons before starting if desired. It also means you can cut a fancier ornament shape than a circle too. Would also make a nice bell especially if done in gold or silver glitter foam.

This is an example of cutting costs by putting the one layer of the more expensive glitter sheet onto stiff cardboard instead of cutting two glitter ornaments and sticking back to back. Sometimes we can do the same crafts just finding a cheaper way to do them.