Crafting With Kids: Christmas Decoration Tutorial

Roxy's pre-school, together with the primary school, held their annual fair over the weekend. I volunteered to run one of the craft activities tables, and settled on the theme of Christmas decorations.

These baubles are fun and easy for kids to make... though rather messy (but the kids love that).
You'll need:
• Styrofoam balls (from craft shops). The diameter of mine were roughly 9cm.
• Brightly coloured fabrics cut into aprox 3 x 3cm pieces. You could also use paper, but I think the fabric is easier to work with.
• PVA glue
• Ribbon
• A small wet towel for wiping gluey hands and the table top.
• A plastic table cover for easy clean up.

1. Paint section by section of the ball with glue, sticking on a patchwork of fabric pieces as you go. Paint over the fabric with glue too. With the PVA glue it doesn't matter if it gets all over the fabric because it will dry clear. I think it's actually better to have lots of glue because it makes the fabric hug the shape of the ball better.

2. Then the whole ball is covered wrap a piece of ribbon around the ball and knot it at the top. If your fabric pieces are covered in glue there's no need to add more. But if your child has been very neat you may need to paint a line of glue on the ball where the ribbon with be placed. Tie another knot about 8 cm up the ribbon so you form a loop to hang your bauble.

3. Take a second piece of ribbon and place it at right angles to the first ribbon on the base of your bauble. Wrap the ribbon up the sides of the bauble and tie then in a knot and then a bow at the top.

4. Hang it somewhere to dry.

We also made very simple garlands using circles I punched out of colourful magazine pages (with a large craft punch), strips of cellophane and string. All you need to do is lay the string out and place a circle underneath it. Paint glue over the circle and string and layer on cellophane pieces and finally another circle. Glue between each layer.

These flower ornaments are also fun and a great recycled item. They are made from little "books" made out of catalogues. I saw this project on another blog recently and I'm sorry to say I've lost the source. If you know the source of this project - or if you are the source - please contact me and I'll amend this to include a link. Thanks to Delaina who sent me the link to the original tutorial for this on Zakka Life. Click here to go to Zakka Life.

White cardboard angels from the craft shop were an easy thing for the small children to decorate with sequins, glitter, stars, etc.

I stuck some branches in a bucket of sand which was wrapped in cellophane and hung all the children's creations on the branches to dry. I took the photo when the braches were still a bit bare - by the end of the fair the branches were full, but I was too busy and too gluey to take another shot. It looked beautiful and was such fun.

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