Seasonal Crafts for Kids

Posted in: In The Know
Tags: christmas, holiday crafts, kid-friendly activities

With just a little holiday magic, kids can turn an ordinary pine cone into a decorative centerpiece.

Craft a special Christmas with your family with these kid-friendly craft projects.

Puffy the Pine Cone Christmas Tree
Courtesy of BusyBeeKidsCrafts.com; Ages 3+

Supplies Needed
Pine Cone
Rice
Green food coloring
Zip-lock baggie
Wax paper
Glue
Craft stick or anything that will spread glue
Paper plate or bowl
Embellishments to decorate your tree (we suggest metallic pipe cleaners, pom poms, and sequins)

Directions
1. In a zip-lock bag mix 1 cup of rice, 1 teaspoon of water and 6-10 drops of food coloring. Seal the bag and squish the bag around until all the rice is coated. If you want your rice more a deeper green just add more food coloring, or don't put in any water at all (1 cup of rice will cover a giant pine cone, with some left over). Lay the rice on a sheet of wax paper to dry (it should dry very quickly).

2. Spread glue all over your pine cone. Use a craft stick to spread the glue.

3. Hold your pine cone over a paper plate or bowl and sprinkle rice all over the gluey pine cone. Press the rice down with your fingers or craft stick so that it sticks really well! Shake off the excess into the bowl. Continue spreading glue in sections until all the pine cone is covered. Shake your pine cone well into the bowl to get rid of any loose rice.

4. Now it's time to decorate your tree. We wrapped shiny pipe cleaners around for garland, glue on sequins for ornaments, or you can use paper, foam, pom poms, even buttons, be creative!

Tip: If your pine cone does not stand up on its own just cut a small piece off a paper tube and place your pine cone inside (it will just look like the trunk).

Paper Plate Snowman
Courtesy of EnchantedLearning.com; Ages 6+

Supplies Needed
2 white paper plates
Construction paper (black, red) or wrapping paper
An orange pipe cleaner
A short length of yarn or ribbon
Hole punch
Marker or crayons
Scissors
Glue
Optional: googly eyes, large buttons

Directions
1. On one of the paper plates, cut off the outer rim, making a smaller plate.

2. Punch a hole near the rim on both places

3. Tie the two plates together using the yarn or ribbon

4. On black construction paper, draw and then cut out a top hat and two boots. On colored construction paper (or gift wrap paper), draw and then cut out two mittens

5. Glue the hat, boots and mittens on the snowman

6. Either glue on googly eyes or draw eyes. Draw a mouth. For the nose, cut a short length from an orange pipe cleaner. Stick the pipe cleaner through the plate to secure it (if the plate is too tough, make a tiny hole with the tip of the scissors)

7. For the buttons, you can cut out shapes from construction paper, use round stickers, glue on real buttons, or simply draw them

You now have a cute snowman decoration to put on a door or hang in a window!

For other fun holiday craft ideas, click here.