With this Christmas period looking a little less busy than usual, you might be looking for projects that you can get stuck into. You may already have started making home-baked mince pies and putting up your festive decorations, but here are some fun ideas for further Christmas Crafts you can try if you’re looking to occupy young kids or you’re just looking to fill up your time by getting crafty.
Gingerbread Houses
These look incredibly festive and fun to make but can also be a little bit time-consuming. If you’re looking for a project that all the family can get involved in, then this is ideal. You can break it down into several phases: firstly making the dough (which can even be done 3 days ahead of time), then cutting out pattern pieces using card and rolling out the dough to these shapes and baking them.
Next you would make the white royal icing, before ‘mortaring’ the pieces together. Finally, you can decorate and let your inner-artist go crazy — perhaps using chocolate truffles as bricks in a fence or cubed Stroop-waffles to make roof tiles.
Home-made Snow-globes
Snow-globes are fun, whimsical, and can be brought out year after year, making them a perfect ‘new’ tradition to begin. All you need are jars with snug rubber-sealed lids, strong glue, glitter and fun waterproof figurines to put inside (dinosaurs, aquarium toys and army figures are all fine options). You can even up the adorable factor by laminating baby photos and adding them to the interior scenes. Glue these to the inside of the lid, and add water to the jar along with plenty of glitter before closing up tight. If you want the glitter to fall more dramatically, you can add glycerine to the water, or use baby-oil for a similar effect.
Wreaths
If you’re looking to go beyond artificial tinsel and glitter, then crafting a wreath is a great way to bring the outdoors into your home, as they were historically made to celebrate the cycles of nature and life. You can make them very simply from thin wire, twine and evergreen foliage. Optional extras include decorative berries, flowers, pine cones and further foliage such as moss. You can even try painting your optional extras in gold, silver or spray-snow to add more festive spirit to your wreath. A fresh wreath should last 4 weeks if kept outdoors, and 2 weeks if it’s inside, so you’ll get to enjoy it through December.
Salt Dough Ornaments
These can be made to hang on your Christmas tree — or if you go the handprint route, they make beautifully sentimental gifts for grandparents. All you’ll need are three basic ingredients that you probably already have in your kitchen: salt, flour, and water. Once you’ve made up a batch of salt dough, you can roll it out and pattern tree, holly, snowflake or star shapes. These can be further jazzed up with beads, little glass pebbles, or paint. If you’re wanting to make the handprint version, make the base shape into a heart or an oval and then get the kids to imprint their hands. Don’t forget all of your ornaments will need a hole in (easy to do with a straw) so that they can be threaded through with pretty ribbon after baking.
By Dr Sunny Kleo
KeiKei is a London-based award-winning journalist and videographer with a degree in Broadcast Media and Journalism from the University of the West of Scotland and an extensive reporting background in news, entertainment, travel, and lifestyle.
KeiKei has travelled the globe interviewing, reporting and reviewing. Her work has been published in worldwide media outlets including, The New York Post, The Guardian, The Mirror, The Daily Mail, National Geographic and Conde Nast publications.
