Fun holiday crafts for kids include easy-to-make projects using common household items like paper plates, craft sticks, and recycled materials, as well as simple edible crafts.
DIY Ornaments
- Cinnamon Applesauce Ornaments: These popular, sweet-smelling ornaments require just two ingredients, cinnamon and applesauce, which are mixed into a dough, cut with cookie cutters, and then baked or air-dried. Kids can decorate them with paint, glitter, or puffy paint once dry.
- Salt Dough Handprint Ornaments: A budget-friendly option where children’s handprints are pressed into salt dough (flour, salt, and water), baked, and then painted and decorated for a personalized keepsake.
- Melted Bead Ornaments: Kids can arrange plastic beads into metal cookie cutters and a grown-up can help melt them in the oven to create colourful, suncatcher-style ornaments.
- Popsicle Stick Ornaments: Simple and versatile, craft sticks can be glued together to form shapes like snowflakes, reindeer faces, or Christmas trees, then painted and embellished with sequins, buttons, or pom-poms.
Simple Paper Crafts
- Paper Snowflakes: An easy and classic activity using only paper and scissors to create unique snowflake designs with kaleidoscope effects.
- Handprint Wreaths: By tracing and cutting out multiple green handprints and gluing them in a circle, kids can create a personalized wreath.
- Paper Plate Crafts: Paper plates can be transformed into various characters like Santa Claus (using cotton wool for the beard) or Christmas trees (decorated with pom-poms) with just paint, glue, and basic craft supplies.
- Paper Chains: A simple, mess-free activity perfect for younger children to make festive garlands using strips of colored paper or leftover wrapping paper.
Edible & Treat Crafts
- Marshmallow Snowmen: Kids can slide three large marshmallows onto a pretzel stick, adding mini chocolate chips for eyes/mouth and an orange candy piece for a nose, serving them with hot chocolate.
- Reindeer Pretzel Rods: Dipping pretzel rods in melted chocolate and adding candy eyeballs and a red candy pearl for a nose creates a fun, edible reindeer treat.
- Snowman Donut Skewers: A fun breakfast or party idea, children can skewer three powdered donuts onto a stick, adding a mini peanut butter cup hat, pretzel arms, and mini M&Ms for features.
General Winter Crafts
- Sock Snowmen: Using an old sock, rice or filling, and a few decorations, kids can build a no-sew snowman that can sit on a shelf.
- Pine Cone Penguins/Angels: Collected pine cones can be painted and decorated with felt or paper cutouts to resemble little penguins or angels.
