5 Super-Easy Christmas Ornaments
This year I got several requests for a post about easy Christmas Ornaments that kids could make that weren't messy or expensive. I have to say that it always surprises me when people think I'm creative! I am definitely not talented enough to come up with anything super complicated so I guess I've become the queen of the easy craft. And honestly, I think lots of Moms out there are just like me and want to do something easy and fun that can be done with minimal preparation or cleanup. So, without further ado, here are the 5 Easiest Christmas Ornament on the Planet, that even the most craft-challenged Moms can do with the kids:
1. Christmas Tree Ornaments
For this, all you need to do is cut Christmas trees out from green paper. They don't even have to be perfect. I know mine wasn't! Once it's decorated, you could just poke a hole in the top and put some ribbon through there so it'll hang as an ornament.
Then you can help them put anything you want on there. you could do stickers, glue sequins or red and green poms to look like ornaments, or even do finger prints with finger paint. We elected to do stickers for a few reasons: 1) It takes a long time to peel off all the stickers and keeps them busy for longer, 2) Stickers are great for developing fine motor skills (look at this pic below, you can just see those little muscles developing) and 3) My kids just adore stickers.
2. Wooden ornaments
It really doesn't get easier than this one. You simply buy these from the craft store in all sorts of designs, Santa, Christmas tree, Frosty, etc. (we bought ours from Hobby Lobby) and give the kids some paint. They cost about $.75 so we bought several and this was by far my daughter's favorite ornament. One tip is to put the paint into an old egg carton so you don't have to wash anything after you're done. Simply throw away the old egg carton. Also, I give my daughter four different brushes so she doesn't have to mix colors but also doesn't have to mess with washing the brushes in between each color change. We've gotten so good at this that we don't even wear smocks anymore!
3. Candy Canes
I remember doing these as a kid and I had forgotten how incredibly easy they are! All you need are some pipe cleaners (red is ideal, but at first we used orange since I couldn't find any red ones and they turned out fine), and some beads from the craft store. These are also very inexpensive and you can find them in the isle with all the ornament stuff:
Then the kids simply bead onto the pipe cleaners, which is also excellent for fine motor skills and pretty soon, voila! A beautiful candy cane:
4. Plastic Balls
You can also find these at the craft store and you can put anything you want into them! We chose small bits of paper because the kids like to crinkle them up and it's great for strengthening hand muscles, which will come in later when they are learning to write. I simply cut up a bunch of bits of paper, they crumpled them all up and then put them into this clear plastic ball. Super easy but it did keep them busy for quite awhile.
5. Sun-catchers
We have been doing these sun-catchers every week for several months now. It's one of my daughters favorite projects, so you can imagine her excitement when I came home from Hobby Lobby with Christmas-themed sun-catchers for her! The great thing is, they paint is provided, so again it's very simple and easy and they even come with holes at the top for the ribbon or twine so they can be hung on the tree.
This isn't exactly what we bought, but you can get the idea:
For more ideas on easy crafts and activities for your kids, please check out my new book! We have hundreds of ways to keep kids busy in productive way, improving fine motor skills, strength, sensory skills, and much more!
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the candy canes and ornaments are so fun. I need my toddler to use stickers more. I hadn't ever thought of them for fine motor skills. Thanks.
ReplyDeleteThese are wonderful examples of inexpensive, easy, fun ideas for Christmas gifts kids can make. Love it. I really like that ball ornament and am on my way to Hobby Lobby to find some. Have lots of tissue paper already. Thanks for sharing.
ReplyDeleteThanks for sharing some ideas! I'm excited to this next year with my daughter. She'll be a bit bigger by then and I'm sure she'll love to decorate :)
ReplyDeleteSpanish Pinay
Your plastic balls with paper inside are super duper cute! What a great choice of colors!!!
ReplyDeleteBeth =-)