Easy Christmas Crafts to Make

Video transcription

Hi, today I'm going to show you a few simple easy Christmas crafts. The first one I'm going to talk about is to make your own wrapping paper. This is a really great activity for kids or even for adults, and it's really simple. You can just go to the store and buy this simple brown wrapping paper--post offices normally have it for shipping and stuff like that, and just take an old sponge so you don't have to go out and buy new ones, just use one you've already got, and you're going to cut it into a holiday shape. Today, I'm going to do a Christmas tree. You can take a permanent marker and draw the shape on there. And I'm just going to draw on a simple Christmas tree. You want to make it a really simple design, so that way it translates well when you actually stamp it on the paper. So I've drawn on my Christmas tree, and then what I'm going to do is I'm just going to cut off into that shape. And I got it all cut out. And then you can take this sponge and just dip it in whatever color you want to use, and just sponge it all over your paper. This is a great activity for kids. The next craft I'm going to show you is actually another reindeer, but we're going to use those old light bulbs. You can get them in lots of different colors--that makes it nice and fun. You're going to use a lot of the same materials. You're going to need that hot glue gun. Regular glue will not work for this, it will have to be a hot glue gun. You're going to use the googely eyes, and the red pompoms. You're also going to use some pipe cleaners. Just get some browns and tans. And what you're going to do is again, we're going to put a little dab of glue at the end to put our nose on Rudolph, right there, and we're going to put two in the middle for his eyes. Put two eyes on there. All right, now for the antlers, what we're going to do, I'm going to do the tan for this one, is fold it in half, and then you can just go through and just bend the antlers however you want. You can cut them off if you want to make them shorter. I just bent it around and then took the extra and twisted it just so that it wasn't out where it can poke somebody. And you know with kids you can let them do it however crazy they want. It doesn't matter--as long as it's nice and bendy it will look like antlers. So we've got our reindeer antlers, and I'm just going to put a liberal amount of glue right in the middle there, and I'm going to glue it to the back part of the light bulb, right like that. So, there we have a little Rudolph. Now the last craft I'm going to show you is a wreath, using old puzzle pieces. All you're going to need is any type of glue--I'm going to use my glue gun. You're going to need a pair of scissors, all of those puzzle pieces, some old paper plates, or you could use cardboard, and maybe some paint, because what I've done is I've taken some of the puzzle pieces and I've painted one side of them for accent colors. For older kids you can let them do that themselves, that way they can choose whatever the colors they want. What you're going to do is you're going to cut out a wreath shape, just a simple circle, on the paper plate, and you're going to use your glue, and you're just going to start putting the puzzle pieces wherever you like. No rhyme or reason, the more chaotic the better, because you'll notice you'll start layering them on top of each other, so that you can no longer see the white paper plate underneath, and it gives a nice wreath effect. Now over here I've shown you, you can pre-make some bows for younger kids, or letter older kids make bows themselves, and add them onto the wreath for a little added interest. Or over here I've taken a couple of painted green pieces and painted red pieces and arranged them in a direction that makes it look kind of like holly, and that always makes a nice little accent on the puzzle piece as well. For older kids, you can let them think about it a little bit more, and pre-plan what they're going to do with their wreath. Like on this one I've shown you, I've purposely layered the puzzle pieces in a particular order. The first layer I used the back of the puzzle piece that has that kind of green look. Then the next layer I used ones that I had spray-painted green, and then on the last layer I used the actual front of the puzzle piece to add a little bit more color. So you can let the kids do whatever they like with it, and it ends up being a nice piece. You can hang it on your door, and you can give it away as a gift, whatever you'd like to do. Well, I hope you had fun. Thanks, and enjoy.