5 Christmas Crafts to Keep Kids Busy

The holiday season should be full of Christmas-themed fun - so why not help your little ones to get creative with these great Christmas craft activities?

Here, we’ll show you how to make:

• Fun Christmas character puppets
• Pretty stars and snowflakes
• Owl baubles
• Beautiful straw Christmas trees
• A colourful DIY Christmas wreath

Read on for a list of amazing Christmas craft ideas for children, from toddlers to tweens!

B&M Top Tip: Crafts of this kind are super easy but can be messy, so take precautions! Use newspaper or plastic sheeting and aprons to minimize mess!

1. Fun Christmas Character Puppets

You will need:

• Firm, sheets of coloured card (go for Christmassy colours - red, green, yellow and brown)
• White paper
• Lollipop sticks
• Safety scissors
• Pipe cleaners
• White paper plates
• Googly eyes
• Washable glue
• Colourful pom poms

• Any other decorative provisions! Try glitter glue, sequins, crayons and colourful paints

This fun activity allows your kids to make puppets of Santa, his elves and his reindeer. 

To make Santa:

1. Mix red and white paint to make light pink, or select a pink crayon. Paint or colour a circle in the middle of the paper plate to make santa’s face

2. Cut a straight line across the paper plate, removing its top quarter

3. Cut a symmetrical (isosceles) triangle out of red card

4. Stick the paper plate to the middle of the triangle (the curved side of the plate should be facing the base of the triangle. The middle point of the triangle should rise above the straight cut line of the plate. The point is Santa’s hat and the plate is his beard!)

5. Wait for the glue to dry

6. Stick on googly eyes, a white pom pom on top of his hat and a lovely red pom pom for his nose

7. Use white paper, left-over white wrapping ribbon or even cotton wool to give Santa a moustache and a trim for his hat

8. Stick these on with glue, then stick a lollipop stick to Santa’s back!

You can also make an elf by cutting around the circle from step 1 and sticking it to a green triangle with some matching pointy ears painted and cut from white paper. Add the eyes, red pom pom nose and lollipop stick and include cute buttons and red trimming.

Rudolph can be made by cutting a brown triangle, turning it upside down so the central point is at the bottom, adding two googly eyes in a line in the top third and a red pom pom at the bottom point! You can make his antlers out of brown pipe cleaners. Add the stick, and it’s time to play!

2. Stars & Snowflakes

One of our favourite easy, cheap Christmas crafts is the timeless snowflake or star cut-out. 

These work beautifully as homemade Christmas tree ornaments for kids, or you can stick them all to a long piece of string and hang them along walls or across the room (Top Tip: use paperclips or mini pegs to attach your Christmas cards to the same string).

You will need:

• Lots of paper (white printer paper is fine, but you can also use colourful patterned paper)
• Safety scissors
• Any other decorative provisions!

B&M Top Tip: If your paper is a rectangle, fold the top corner down until it meets the opposite side and makes a triangle at the top. You’ll have a strip of paper at the bottom that isn’t doubled. Cut this off with the scissors and you’ll have a square!

1. Fold your paper square diagonally, making a triangle
2. Fold the triangle in half to make a smaller triangle
3. Turn the triangle so its central (widest) point is facing you
4. Fold the top left corner in so that it’s sticking out above the top line and there’s a straight line down the middle
5. Fold the top right corner in the same way so it crosses over the left one
6. Cut the points off so that there’s a straight line at the top again
7. Snip off the tip of the triangle you’re left with
8. Cut triangles or any other shapes out of each side of the paper
9. Unfold your beautiful star or snowflake!
10. Decorate it however you like

3. Owl Baubles

These lovely ornaments are ideal if you’re looking for easy Christmas crafts for kids. You’ll need:

• A pack of durable, smooth, one-colour baubles (silver or white work well)
• Googly eyes
• Feathers
• Washable glue
• Small orange or yellow felt triangles for beaks (you can cut these out in advance)
• Any other decorative provisions!

1. Decorate your baubles however you like
2. Stick feathers on each side to make wings
3. Stick a beak front and centre
4. Stick two googly eyes at the top of the beak on either side!
5. Leave to dry

There you have it! Some sweet little owls to hang on your tree!

4. Straw Christmas trees

These are some of the easiest Christmas tree crafts you can make!

B&M Top Tip: This involves a lot of cutting so is best for older kids - otherwise, you might want to do the hard part them watch as they put everything together!

You will need:

• Colourful paper straws
• Washable glue
• Sparkly cut-out stars, snowflakes or anything else to go on top of the tree
• Any other decorative provisions! Blobs of glitter glue make lovely pretend baubles

 

1. Cut straws to different lengths - one really short, another twice the size, another the size of the first two put together and so on. Remember to keep a pile of straws uncut!
2. Lay out two straws side by side, touching each other
3. Stick the tiniest cut straw horizontally across the front of them. This should be a short distance from the very top, as you’ll need a little space on which to stick your star!
4. Stick a slightly bigger cut straw directly below
5. Keep going down the tree, each time adding a slightly longer straw
6. Leave a length of vertical straw at the bottom to be the trunk
7. Stick on your star and other decorations
8. Leave to dry

5. DIY Christmas wreath 

For easy and cute Christmas crafts for toddlers, why not make your wreath using their handprints? You will need:

• A good-sized ring cut out of cardboard
• A large piece of white card
• Finger paints in Christmas colours
• Glitter
• Scissors

B&M Top Tip: Make sure your toddler is in short sleeves!

1. Cover your little ones’ hands in the paint (it should be washable to protect clothes and faces!)
2. Help them to press their hands onto the white card. Try to start at a central point
3. Repeat with different colours, working your way out to the edges of the card
4. Sprinkle with glitter!
5. Leave to dry
6. Place your cardboard ring over the creation and mark lightly around it
7. Cut along the lines you’ve marked to make a big circle, but be creative - it’s great if you can cut around some of the fingerprints so that they are left sticking out over the edge like holly leaves!

So there you have it - our five favourite homemade Christmas decorations for kids. Contrast them with other accessories like pretty bows or snowflakes, and include your own beautiful ornaments for a perfect family Christmas.

From Christmas puppets to snowflakes and owl baubles to straw trees or wreaths - finding fun activities to enjoy with your little ones can be super-easy and very cheap. 

B&M Top Tip: Take a look at our craft and design section for more ideas and inspiration!

If you’ve created some great ornament crafts with your little ones, why not share pictures and ideas with the B&M Community via Twitter, Facebook or Instagram?