Christmas Gifts: What are your Children making?

[Valerie]

I'm wondering what people have planned for their children to make for Christmas? You know, to give as gifts to their parents, or visa verse and give them to their teachers? I've seen some great stuff out their on the web, but I know that ya'll have the experience and creative minds that I'm looking for, so tell us......what are you're kiddos making this year?

[KT]

My son is making snowflakes. They have these metal 6 pointed frames at the craft store near us. (sort of like an asterick) To be symetrical you need to gather beads in groups of six. Then just make the same pattern up each metal point. They sell little rubber bead caps to put at the top, or you can drop some super glue down the middle of the top bead. They look really nice with white and blue beads. My son who is 11 is making them for all his grandparents and aunts. I think children as young as 5, who are used to some crafting could easily do this with a little help from an adult.

[Shannan Thiel]

My children are making home made ornaments, with applesauce and cinnamon! They are going to smell fantastic! Then we are drying grapefruit slices... very traditional and old fashioned gifts this year. They will look great on the tree.

[thefairymum]

My daughter is pressing some flowers and fauna that she has found on our walks, and then we will design them into a little bookmark that (I) will then laminate. We are also writing and illustrating little stories to give to those we love.

[angel]

We are making paper mache bowles and decorating them with magazine pics decoupaged on in a theme.
with so many cataloges avaliable this time of year and news paper being so handy this is a great way to recycle and give a great gift that will be treasured.

[heather]

My kiddo's are decorating plastic ornaments with glitter glue and plastic diamonds. It's simple and will be their own masterpiece for their parents that they can hang on the Christmas tree. You can get the ornaments at the Dollar Tree or Party Depot. ( Dollar tree is way cheaper, found that out the hard way!! )

[sam]

we are making calenders, we use an a4 sheet of card, and each child has a small piece of card to decorate, our 5yr old draws round a stencil, then colours and glitter it, our 2 yr old does a scribble, and we draw around our 13 month olds hand or foot, we then stick a calender on the bottom and stick the individual cards on, some ribbon through the top and they look great :)

[Mrs. Hewett]

We are making Handprint Calendars with Bible verses for each month. I had planned to have them done by now, but could not find any blank "design your own calendars" until Thanksgiving when we visited family in another state. I thought of printing my own and having them copied and bound at the office supply store, but that was going to be too expensive ($20 + each calendar). The blank calendars I finally found are 12x12 size from the scrapbooking section in Hobby Lobby, and they cost $12 each. We will have to write the days of the weeks, numbers, and months in by hand (which is fine since I am making one calendar in French) and it will take a little longer to do the handprint pictures because they must dry before turning the page and doing the next one. We are doing them for both sets of grandparents and great-grandma, so it's not too many. I'm really looking forward to seeing how they turn out!

[Mrs. Hewett]

We finished our calendars! They turned out really nice. I've posted pictures of the French calendar we made for one grandma here:

http://lapbooklessons.ning.com/photo/albums/2009-handprint-calendars

I hope you like seeing our calendar project. Enjoy!

Mrs. H

P.S. the French do not capitalize the days of the week or months of the year, and their calendars start the week with Monday (lundi), just in case you thought something was a little different (I mean, besides the foreign language)

[zulia]

My students of 7 and 8 years old are using the front pages of the old Christmas cards to make Christmas tree decorations. We cut out the design we like, then punch hole around them. Next we choose a contrasting colour wool yarn (dark green and red look quite nice) and sew around the design. If you leave a long piece of yarn at the beginning of sewing, you can make a bow at the end of sewing. Just tie the first long piece of yarn with the last one. Then you can put through a couple of beads on the two ends of the bow. Finally attach a loop of yarn at the back of the card. These decoartions look really special and would make a lovely present. If you want a photo of them, I can email them to you.

[Mrs. Hewett]

zulia,

I'd love to see a picture of this project. It sounds good, but I'm a very visual learner and can't quite picture what you described. Thanks so much!

Karen
mama2gems[at]gmail[dot]com

[Valerie]

I just added a photo of what my kids made for family members.

http://www.littleblots.com/profiles/blogs/christmas-presents

They are little ornaments we picked up from Joann's fabrics for about a quarter each.