home made Christmas decorations…ornament making station
This year I am sharing our home made Christmas decoration station as a part of the Creative Christmas Countdown, if you missed it make sure to check it out… 24 fantastic ideas from 24 amazing bloggers.
Day 2: Home made Christmas Decoration… Ornament Making Station
Setting up an ornament making station is one of our family traditions. It started back when M and M were 2 and 4 years old… and it has been my favorite tradition ever since. While their skills and materials have increased over the years one thing has remained the same, their creative spirit always shines through.
Our art center has become the central hub of our home, it is where you can find the kids first thing in the morning and right before bed each night. Creativity is a reoccurring theme around here. Switching out a few items to add a little Christmas kick was easy, don’t worry if you are starting from scratch. You will be surprised how cheap and easy it is!
BEFORE YOU START!!! These materials are just to get you thinking. If you close up the computer, grab a box and start searching through your house I’m sure you will find everything you need to get your kids creating home made Christmas decorations. The most important part of these home-made Christmas decorations is that they are KID designed and KID made. Collect materials with no expectations in mind. Let them explore the materials (and perhaps add their own). Be proud of what they create (even if you can’t identify it). Sit back and watch their passion… it just might inspire you!
If there is place right next to your art area for a tree…PERFECT! If not, make some room near the bottom of your family tree. That way the kids can hang up their work.
Start with the bones…
Having a base for the ornaments and a way to attach everything is really important. Get creative with your collection but here’s a list to get you started.
Items for the base                          Items for attaching
1. Vitamin Boxes                                       1. White glue
2. Small boxes (like the one Vanilla                     2. Glue stick
extract comes in.) Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â 3. Stapler
3. Crayon boxes                                        4. Tape
4. Gum boxes                                          5. Hot glue gun (this will be
5. Sticker boxes                                         the first year for it at   Christmas!)
6. Tic Tac containers
7. Mini Candy boxes
8. Lids of all shapes and sizes
9. Toilet paper rolls (some left whole,
some cut into round strips)
10. Egg cartons (cut into 12 small cups)
11. Ribbon spools
12. Anything small that
other things can be glued to!
Add some odds and ends…
Odds and ends are my favorite part of the collecting process. My friends and family are happy to hand over their “junk” and I am always happy to take it! Sometimes I score at the thrift store or garage sales and once in a while I actually buy things full price… at the $1 store. 😉
1. Corks                                               9. Make up sponges
2. Pipe cleaners                                       10. Bottle caps
3. String                                               11. Candy wrappers
4. Marbles
5. Wooden craft pieces
6. Little cups or muffin cups
7. Ribbon (You can find tons of FREE ribbon at birthday parties all you have to do is offer to be in charge of the after present mess.)
8. Kit stuff (You know those kits you can get for groups of kids to make frames, ornaments or other cute things like that? If I know someone is going to use them… I ask for the left over pieces!)
Add some Christmas fun…
Yes this is the place I spend a little bit of money. (Hee hee, we are talking very little money!) I have a small box labeled holiday that I keep out of the kids reach which makes saving the left over supplies easy! When you are looking for Christmas art supplies think beyond the craft section. Some decorations can be cut up and pulled apart to offer interesting pieces for making home made Christmas decorations.
1. Felt                                            10. Craft sticks
2. Fabric                                         11. Pine cones and mini pine cones
3. Googly eyes                                   12. Candy canes
4. Pom poms
5. Beads
6. Sequins
7. Netting (Can be found wrapped around some produce)
8. Wooden pieces (these can be used as tracers or as a base)
9. Wrapping paper scraps (from last year or bought at the dollar store)
Add some Learning fun…
I wouldn’t be me if I didn’t add a little learning to our home made Christmas decorations! One way to encourage new little readers and writers to practice is by adding it wherever you can. In our art center we have name cards (the kind you can get at the teacher supply store and maybe Target) I wrote out the names of friends and family that are close to us. That way they can practice writing Grandma, Aunt L and each other’s names whenever they feel like it. You can do the same thing with Christmas words OR you can make your own cards like I did. I wrote out words that might get the kids interested, cut them out and used contact paper to seal them up.
Christmas words
1. Santa Claus                                    7. Tree
2. Mrs. Claus                                     8. Stocking
3. Christmas                                      9. Chimney
4. Christmas Eve                                 10.Gingerbread
5. Snowflake                                     11. Gifts
6. Reindeer                                       12. Family
Enjoy and then save your Home-Made Christmas DecorationsÂ
These are decorations made by M and M a few years ago. The box marked home-made decorations is the most exciting one to open. It reminds me of what they were doing in the past… and gets me anxious to see what will come! They decorate their own tree and we enjoy it all through December. Then, when it’s time to take Christmas down we all pick a few of our favorites to save. (Trust me there are way too many to save them all!)
I mark the date and the name of the artist on our home made Christmas decorations and then carefully package them for safe storage… they are after all my most valuable ornaments. 🙂
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Great inspiration tonight!! I need to let my class do their OWN creative work but I too often expect theirs to look like mine in the end! Shame on me!!!
Cheri,
You are not alone! It isn’t easy to let go of what you think is the “right” way but it does get easier with practice… I promise. 😉
Jillian
I’m going to try this in a box which we can get out from time to time. My youngest is only 10 months old and even if he only put one sticker on one box I wouls love and cherish the ornament forever!
Yes a box would make it easier for such a little one. I love looking at the beginning ornaments from when M and M were so small. It’s neat to see how much they’ve changed in just one year.
We have a box. And my 10 month old helped me stick a sticker on a clear lid, so I’m very happy with that. My 3 year old started doing a rubbish collection with his truck. He took away the card, and the ribbon, and the shapes, and the stickers, and everything else he could get his hands on! He loves his pretend play at the moment. We’ll make ornaments another day, I suppose.
Very cute! My kiddo likes his little art table too and could sit there for hours in a day.
It’s a beautiful thing… the art table. 😉
I love this. My kids love getting creative and make beautiful things throughout the year. But at Christmas we tend to get stuck in the rut of making paper chains and not much else. This year I’ve already designated the bottom of the tree to them and they’ve picked new decorations to put there, but I’ll definitely be encouraging them to make their own and add them to the tree.
Awesome!!! We were about to make paper chains and Big M came up with his own version of the count down.
Fantastic post. Sharing. I’m very excited about learning more.
Those Christmas decorations are awesome!!! I love this idea sooo much.
My favorite part about this post is the list of all of the material ideas. I’m going to pull out my recyclables box and let my son have fun making ornaments. 🙂
I love, love, love this. Very creative!! Great idea. My favorite is the candle stick.
Hey Jillian!
Great post – hey, just a heads up – I clicked the facebook link in your post (and the one at the top of the page) to like you, but the link doesn’t seem to work. Just wanted to let you know 🙂
Merry Christmas!
Amy
Thank you Amy! I was able to fix it right after you left the comment. YOU ARE AWESOME!!!