Making Christmas Gifts with Children
           
Children love making gifts and it is easy to include them in the gift making process. Including children in making home-made gifts is a rich learning experience for them. Anyone can buy a gift in the store, but making a gift by hand takes time and effort, which makes the gift more meaningful to the receiver.

Ornaments are especially easy to create and make great gifts. Try using simple cheap materials such as popsicle sticks, pipe cleaners, beads, string, yarn, and paper. A simple craft glue will work well for constructing the ornaments. If you’re creative enough you can use almost any cheap craft item to make an ornament. Wooden clothes pins can become fairies with artificial poinsettia flower wings and poinsettia leaf skirts. (be sure it’s the artificial, not real poinsettias as the real ones are poisonous.) Just use your imagination and you can make almost anything out of the most simple materials.

Tied edge blankets are especially simple and fun to make. These blankets can be made by simply placing two pieces of fleece back to back and cutting the edges like fringe in 2-3 cm increments with each piece of fringe about 5 cm long. Then tie the fringe together. No sewing required! It is better to first tie the top side together and then the bottom instead of going all the way around. That way the blanket does not become bunched up. Scarves can also be made in the same fashion as the blanket but only need to be tied at the ends and only need one piece of fabric instead of two.

Children may also enjoy helping decorate already made items such as trinket boxes or picture frames found at a craft or second hand store. It’s easy to add a personalised touch to any item for very little money at all. Look through your favorite magazines and the newspaper for pictures or lettering to glue onto a frame or box. To seal off the finished product, you can use a simple bottle of clear nail polish.

Baking cookies and making homemade candies with children are some of the most cherished Christmas memories seen on cards and memorabilia during the holiday season. Children can help by adding ingredients to the bowl, rolling the dough, or even decorating the baked cookies with icing and sprinkles. The only cautionary advice is to keep little hands and fingers away from the hot oven, and any sharp objects to be used should be used only by adults.

Hand made cards are a wonderful way to show you care and can be made to look as simple or extravagant as you would like. The most simple cards can be made of construction paper and crayons. Construction paper and crayons can be found at most grocery stores or pharmacies, or perhaps you already have both in your own home. Cardstock is what most cards you would find on a store shelf are made out of. You can find cardstock at your local craft store. For Christmas they usually have a package of blank Christmas colored cards. To add a special effect, kids can use glue and glitter to make pretty designs on the cards. Children can help stamp these cards with rubber or acrylic stamps or even draw using stencils. If you know how to emboss, children can also help you emboss by stamping and pouring the embossing powder on the card. I’d suggest having an adult use the heating tool though, and not the child, as it will get very hot.

I hope you have a fun time making worthwhile gifts with your children.