Home-Made Christmas Tree Decorations

Every year since The Boy was born, we buy him his own special Christmas decoration (to help build up a collection for first adult Christmas tree) and write the year on the bottom of it. I always aim to buy traditional style decorations that have a story to them and he's fascinated by them. This year he's old enough to start making his own decorations and I can't wait to see our Christmas tree filled with his home-made decorations in the future.

You'll need:

  • green felt
  • red felt
  • green or red ribbon
  • green, white and red buttons
  • felt holly leaves and berries (I bought these from Baker Ross)
  • PVA glue
  • scissors

felt decorations

  1. Draw two large circles (one red and one green) and then draw a small inner circle in the middle (I used a large coffee mug rim to draw around).
  2. Cut two smaller circles out of the green felt, and two from the red. These will also need an inner circle, but this must be bigger than the inner circle on the large red or green circle.

Holly wreath decoration:

  1. Cut a 20cm length of ribbon and feed it through the middle of the large green circle, glue it into place and tie the end.
  2. Glue the red circles into place over the ribbon on each side of the large green circle.
  3. Stick holly leaves and berries over the top of the red small circles on both sides and leave to dry.

felt decorations

Button wreath decoration:

  1. Cut a 20cm length of ribbon and feed it through the middle of the large red circle, glue it into place and tie the end.
  2. Glue the green circles into place over the ribbon on each side of the large red circle.
  3. Glue a selection of red, green and white buttons over the small green circles on both sides.

christmas decorations

'Counting Down To Christmas' is a craft bloggers link-up held each week in the eight weeks preceeding the big day itself. Each week we will be posting a different Christmas craft activity.

Rainy Day Mum ~ Mummy Mummy Mum! ~ Life at the Zoo ~ The Fairy and The Frog~ Jennifer’s Little World ~ Making Boys Men ~ Mama Pea Pod

Home-Made Christmas Cards

Before The Boy was born I used to spend hours looking for the perfect Christmas cards which would complement my chosen wrapping paper and the theme of the year. Then along came a perfect little being who looked incredibly cute dressed up in a Christmas costume, and he would be duely photographed and the image printed onto the front of personalised Christmas cards. This year he's going to be three and a half at Christmas and I just can't do it to him anymore; so in addition to traditional Hallmark cards, he's going to be making cards for family this year.

Here are some very simple cards that your pre-schooler can make within a few minutes.

You'll need:

  • red and green card blanks
  • blue card blanks
  • white paint
  • green felt
  • sequins and stars
  • bauble card blanks
  • glue
  • ribbon
  • felt pens

I'm not going to do a ste-by-step guide because the photos really show how self-explanatory the cards are!

One tip: start making them now because pre-schoolers are not known for their ability to sit down for a few hours and make cards, then write them!

'Counting Down To Christmas' is a craft bloggers link-up held each week in the eight weeks preceeding the big day itself. Each week we will be posting a different Christmas craft activity.

This week the co-hosts are Rainy Day Mum ~ Mummy Mummy Mum! ~ Life at the Zoo ~ Here Come the Girls ~ The Fairy and The Frog ~ Jennifer's Little World ~ Playful Learners ~ Making Boys Men

 This post contains sponsored links. The content is original, honest and uncontrived!

Home-Made Advent Calendar

I know it's only the 1st of November, but in about three weeks time you'll be grateful that I started these posts early.

Advent: (n) The coming or arrival, especially of something extremely important.

For Christians, Advent starts on the fourth Sunday before Christmas Day where a candle on an Advent wreath is lit for each week leading up to the celebration of the birth of Jesus.

For most families nowadays, the word 'advent' used around the festive season conjures up chocolate calendars printed with their youngster's favourite television character, some may have a gorgeous 'traditional-style' wooden tree with 24 drawers in, allowing it to be reused each year. And yes, I said '24' because 'advent' means the 'approach of'. It's a way of marking the coming of Christmas Day, and as such should not have a 25th window. This practise of counting down each day was started by German Lutherans at the beginning of the 19th century. Not such a new tradition hey?

We've been making our own simple Advent calendar to use in a few weeks time when December starts.

You'll need:

  • coloured foam or card numbers
  • 24 boxes*
  • coloured, shredded tissue paper
  • ribbon*
  • 24 'treats'
  • cardboard
  • glue
  • gold paint
  • sequins*
  • scissors
  • paintbrush

Christmas crafts

Set out the numbers into a numberline up to 24.

Christmas crafts

Assemble the boxes.

Christmas crafts

Stick on the numbers to the front of the box.

christmas crafts

Place the shredded tissue paper and a treat inside each bag. (I've used a mixture of Christmas tree decorations and chocolate coins). Tie the handles together with a length of ribbon, long enough to tie off the hanging circles (30cm).

christmas crafts

Draw four circles with an inner circle in them, creating a hoop shape. Cut them out and stick two together. Once dried, paint both sides with gold and stick gold and silver sequins on.

Tie four lengths of ribbon to the first hoop. Cut four double length strips of ribbon and tie them to the second hoop. Gather all of the eight ends together and tie into a knot. This forms the loop to hang the calendar from. From the first hoop, suspend twelve of the boxes and from the second tie the other twelve. If you arrange this in a random order then it makes it more of a challenge to find the numbers.

christmas crafts

'Counting Down To Christmas' is a craft bloggers link-up held each week in the eight weeks preceeding the big day itself. Each week we will be posting a different Christmas craft activity.

This week, the co-hosts are Rainy Day Mum ~ Mummy Mummy Mum! ~ Life at the Zoo ~ Here Come the Girls ~ The Fairy and The Frog ~ Jennifer's Little World ~ Playful Learners ~ Making Boys Men.

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