Five easy Christmas crafts that children can actually do themselves

Making Christmas decorations with children is fantastic because not only do you get unpredictable and hilarious results, but little heirlooms to keep and get out every year. By the time they turn ten, you'll never want to see another glittery toilet roll but that's to worry about later. 

Here are five of the Christmas crafts we have been busy with this year. All easy, fun to do and not expensive. More importantly, with these crafts you can let your little one be creative rather than heavily guiding them (and basically ending up doing it yourself).

1. Sharpie baubles


What you need: some cheap plastic baubles and a selection of sharpie pens.

What your child needs to do: use a sharpie to draw or scribble all over the bauble.

What you need to do: have a coffee and hold the bauble while they draw or scribble all over it in sharpie pens. Scribbling looks really good, but you might have a Picasso on your hands, so just let them enjoy it.

2. Pine cone Christmas trees

What you need: some pine cones, mini pom-poms and pipe cleaners.

What your child needs to do: push the pom-poms and pipe cleaners into the pine cones.

What you need to do: sit and watch and have a laugh and a coffee. Hang them on the tree later. 

3: Découpage bells

What you need: some of those cheap polystyrene bells, tissue paper of different colours, PVA glue, plastic beads and pipe cleaners.

What your child needs to do: stick tissue paper all over the bells, and thread beads onto pipe cleaners.

What you need to do: put newspaper all over the table to protect it from the mess. Put PVA glue in a dish, and cut up some tissue paper. Let your child stick the tissue paper all over the bells however they want, let them go crazy. Have a coffee. When they have finished let the bells dry, and then help your child thread beads onto some pipe cleaners. Then poke the pipe cleaner ends into the polystyrene bells to make a loop. Hand them on the tree.

4. Perfect-every-time Christmas cards

What you need: some A4 card, paint, paint brush, glue, craft knife, stickers (optional).

What your child needs to do: paint anything they want onto a piece of card, let them go crazy. Stick stickers on afterwards however they want (optional).

What you need to do: fold a piece of card in half to make a basic card. Cut out a Christmas tree shape on the front using a craft knife. When your child has finished painting, let the painting dry. Then cut the painting to the size of the card and stick it on the inside front cover of the card. Then, if you want, let your child decorate the front of the card (look! there's a perfectly-painted Christmas tree on the front!) with round or star-shaped stickers for baubles.

5. Air-dry clay decorations

What you need: some air-dry clay, glitter glue and some cheap plastic seed beads.

What your child needs to do: use a cookie cutter, squeeze glitter glue and throw beads into the glue.

What you need to do: roll out the air dry clay and get your child to use the cookie cutter to make some shapes. Put a hole at the top so you can hang the decoration later. Let them dry for a day turning them once. Then watch as your child smears glitter glue all over the declaration and laugh as they throw the seed beads into the glue. Let it all dry and wonder at the magic of seed beads and how they are just like glitter and manage to get everywhere.

Five easy crafts, children will love and you'll get some nice results too.