Christmas Crafts

Sarah posted here about how she loves to display her little artists' renditions of the Nativity scene during the Christmas season. This is such a wonderful idea because children sit and think about the birth of Christ as they are crafting, you benefit from the output of adorable decorations, and your child is reminded in a personal way of Jesus Christ and the reason we celebrate Christmas when they see their art displayed.

Here are some more craft ideas that would be fun to share with your little ones.

Click here for instructions on how to make:
Stick Nativity Scene
Isaiah 7:14 Bible Scroll
Baby Jesus in an Envelope Manger
M&M Christmas poem

String Art is a fun activity for older children. Here is a pattern for a Christmas Star

Clay Pot Nativity

We had so much fun with our grandchildren making nativities out of small clay pots, large wooden beads and felt. The one pictured above was made by our 5 year old grandson. Total cost for materials for one set was less than $2, but I think the result is priceless!

Materials needed:
2 small clay pots
1 small clay saucer
2 large wooden beads
1 wooden clothespin or wooden craft person (for baby Jesus), could use wood craft stick
scraps of felt or other fabric
rafia or hay
glue gun
paint or perm. marker for faces

Kids Handmade Holiday

A kids crafting blog that I follow called The Crafty Crow has put out the word that they are doing a Kids Handmade Holiday series of posts for the month of December. I am very excited to see what they share. I believe that handmade gifts have more power to touch hearts (especially grandparents') and are a big part of giving of yourself.

Homemade Gifts

Every year the ugliness of commercialism becomes more prevelant. We simply do not watch TV and thus don't have to see all of the commercials. Catalogs are thrown out. One way to help us focus more on giving is to make homemade gifts. I remember my family doing this as a child and those are the presents that I actually remember. With a little bit of encouragement, children are so very good at giving of themselves.

There are many blogs and websites that do homemade Christmas gift idas. Some of the major blogs do a special series of posts this time of year dedicated to homemade gifts. One such blog is Sew, Mama, Sew. They are doing their 2nd anual Handmade Holidays. Every day in Novemeber they are posting gift ideas focused on people who might be on your gift list ie. college student, grandparents, gift exchanges, teachers, pet lovers etc. (They did this last year and there is a link to those posts. This years are all supposedly all new ideas). Seeming as we are nearing the end of November there are quite a few posts filled with ideas.

I will add a link list for those blogs I find that are posting about homemade gifts. Don't be afraid to be creative and get your kids in on the action.

Please comment if you have any ideas to share or have found blogs with good ideas.

Arts and Crafts

I love children's artwork and always have some displayed in prominent places in my home. At Christmas it is wonderful to sit down with your children or grandchildren with paper and art supplies and encourage them to draw or paint pictures of the nativity. Encourage their creativity and you will be rewarded with the sweetest artwork that reminds your children and you of the reason for the season.

Help children to make their own nativity. We have done this with simple cut out shapes of felt that were then played with on a flannel board to retell the Christmas story. We have used wooden spools bought at the craft store and painted, and playdough and clay shapes molded by small hands.

We have bought a big slab of red potter's clay and made small clay lamps that are similar to the lamps used at the time of Christ. Even teenage boys like the process of lighting these.

Look for more arts and crafts in the weeks to come. We will link to many of the amazing things other people are doing.