Hi loves! Are you feeling the holiday spirit yet? We definitely do! My son has been begging me to put the Christmas tree up for weeks and we finally got all the decoration out on a Friday after Thanksgiving. Extra days at home are definitely more challenging for the smaller kids with all of their energy. Days are getting shorter, weather is becoming colder, and we definitely need some ideas to occupy ourselves at home and find something that all of the family members can participate in. For that reason, I decided to put together some ideas of quick, easy and inexpensive (which is a plus during all of the holiday shopping craziness) crafting activities that are suited for kids and adults of all ages.

1.Decorating ornaments

With the variety of tree ornaments available you would probably think who wants to paint their own ornament? Let me tell you. Everyone! I know it sounds silly, but just give it a chance and get a set of clear ornament, a few brushes and craft paints, and the biggest kid in the room will probably be the oldest adult 😉 Honestly, this simple activity is so much fun with so mane possibilities that the sky is not the limit for all the ideas you can come up with to decorate your ornaments.

I personally love the chance to stuff something inside of the ornament. I think it add another dimension to the design and an interesting texture. And my son definitely picks decorating with glitter over anything else. So in this little tutorial we combined it all and look how cute and festive it looks.

Supply list:

1. A set of clear tree ornament (pick plastic ones if you have small kids)
2. Brushes
3. Craft paint
4. Glitter (optional)
5. Stuffing (confetti, tree garland, ribbons, etc)

Step 1. What’s on the inside matters

I mean you can always skip this step, but why would you? You definitely got some unused tree garlands ( I just got tired of mine and decided not to use it this year) that you can chop up or use an entire piece. My son got very excited about putting something inside the ornament and did it in less than a minute.

You can also use anything you want. Artificial snow, glitter, ribbons, basically anything fluffy or shiny.

Simply close up the cap and you can even leave it at that. The texture of the tinsel garland is already adding an interesting look .

Step 2. Let’s paint!

Now this part is completely up to you. You can paint your day away!!! But I recommend starting with something simple. For example, My son Anton and I decided to add some ‘snow’. We simply covered the top part of the ornament with white craft paint.

Don’t cover the entire area of the ornament, because you want to see the beautiful garland inside. And don’t be afraid to experiment with different colors. After all, the beauty of this craft paint is that it can be easily cleaned up (or removed and reapplied ;).

Step 3. Let it snow!

This step is completely optional, but highly recommended! it was definitely Anton’s favorite part.

To create a more interesting effect of ‘snow’ that we initially painted on our ornament, we decided to sprinkle some white glitter on top while the paint was wet.

Remember to do it over a clean plate to preserve all the glitter that falls off and to protect the table and yourself from glitter disaster. Also, shake off some extra glitter from the ornament, so it doesn’t fall off somewhere else later.

And just look at this beautiful thing that took only a few minutes to make and now your child can proudly say that he/she decorated the tree !

Don’t forget to experiment with different colors, textures, and shapes of glitter!

2.Decorating wrapping paper

Supply list:

1. Kraft wrapping paper
2. White wrapping paper or simple roll of paper
3. Craft paint
4. Potato
5. Sponge brush for spreading paint
6. Ribbons for decorating gifts
7. *optional* Ready made stamps

When I told Anton we were gonna decorate some paper with stamps he got excited, but when I added that we were going to do that with a potato, he though I was joking. But was I?

Potato stamping is probably the most easiest and fun way to create fun patterns. You most likely have a potato in your house and you probably have some leftover paint from the first project. Paper can be used almost of any kind I had a roll of natural color kraft paper and white paper roll. Needless to say that these rolls come in insane footage, so you wrap enough gifts for couple years ahead!

First, let’s make a stamp. I used only one potato and got two stamp designs out of it.

Step 1. Cut a potato in half and draw a simple stamp on each side.

I chose to do a tree and an ornament.

Step 2. Cut along the lines going about quarter of an inch deep.

Step 3. Cut off the sides, be careful not to cut off the elements of the stamp.

Step 4. Let’s stamp!

Now that the sharp objects can be put away we can invite kids in!

Spread some paint with a sponge brush on a plastic plate or a paint palette in a thin layer, that prevents the stamp from picking up too much paint and creating a blob on the paper. And begin stamping.

Go in all directions until you cover the entire area of the paper. That’s a great way to get more family members involved because there will be a lot of stamping to do 😉

If you know the size of the gift, you can cut off a portion of the paper that is already covered in stamps to let it dry while you continue. Remember that this paint doesn’t dry right away, so don’t smudge your beautiful designs!

White paper is perfect for adding some color into your gist wrapping! Space the designs as far away or as close as you want, but for smaller gifts close spacing works best.

Once the paper is dry, you can wrap the presents and decorate with a simple ribbon.

Just look at that happy face 🙂

p.s. to avoid all the hustle with cutting a potato, you can play around with already made holiday stamps.

3. Making Holiday Cards

This project was total last minute improvisation on our ‘crafting’ day. I know that my son loves painting, cutting paper and glueing something. So I came up with an idea for a holiday card!

Supply list:

1. Blank cards (I recommend multimedia type to prevent warping)
2. Paper
3. Craft paint
4. Craft brushes
5. Scissors
6. Glue stick
7. *optional* Punches for paper crafts

Step 1. Paint

First, decide that design do you want for your holiday cards. We did trees and ornaments, you can do larger ornaments and decorations on them for example. But the idea here is to have elements of different colors because we will be painting those colors first.

For out trees we painted one full sheet of paper in different shades of green. You can either use different tubes of green paint or mix in yellow into you green or blue in different proportions.

You want to achieve something interesting and completely abstract like this:

And for out ornaments Anton painted the other sheet of paper in different shades of red and yellow

Step 2. Draw the shapes for your trees and ornaments on the back of your painted paper and cut them out

To avoid leaving pencil marks on out painted side of paper and for the sake of keeping the pattern completely random, I drew the shapes of trees and ornaments on the backs of our painted sheets of paper. Drawing the shapes also helped Anton to stay on track with cutting the right stuff. You can also use craft hole punches with holiday designs especially if you are making a lot of cards or want very detailed designs.

Step 3. Glue your cut out shapes on cards

It was so much fun seeing what color combination we got on each shape! You can arrange your trees all in one line or all over the card to make a mini forest.

Isn’t it cute? 🙂 and it was so easy for Anton making him feel like he did it all by himself!

Here are our easy and fun little crafty projects from our crafty family to yours! They are fun to do on the weekend or when you get snowed in! Also a great activity for the cozy winter evenings with a cup of hot chocolate! I hope you enjoyed it and got inspired to try something with your kids or by yourself!

Let me know in the comments how it turned out and what modification you made to male these projects feel more special!

Complete list of supplies:

Decorating ornaments:

1. A set of clear tree ornament (pick plastic ones if you have small kids)
2. Brushes
3. Craft paint
4. Glitter (optional)
5. Stuffing (confetti, tree garland, ribbons, etc)

Wrapping paper project:

1. Kraft wrapping paper
2. White wrapping paper or simple roll of paper
3. Craft paint
4. Potato
5. Sponge brush for spreading paint
6. Ribbons for decorating gifts
7. *optional* Ready made stamps

Holiday cards:

1. Blank cards (I recommend multimedia type to prevent warping)
2. Paper
3. Craft paint
4. Craft brushes
5. Scissors
6. Glue stick
7. *optional* Punches for paper crafts

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