With Christmas fast approaching, it’s more important than ever to have a few indoor activities for kids up your sleeve to keep them entertained. If you’re ready to raid the kitchen cupboard and dig out a few art supplies, we have 10 simple projects that are full of festive magic.
They’re all budget-friendly, and most are simple enough for the kids to make with just a little supervision. Of course, it might look like such fun that the adults want to join in, too!
Adults can get in on the festive fun with more Christmas craft ideas and easy table decorations, or send some Christmas cheer with our DIY card ideas.
Easy Christmas crafts for kids
1. Salt dough Christmas decorations
Is there anything more festive than seeing a Christmas tree adorned with homemade decorations? You only need three simple ingredients – plain flour, table salt and water – to make our easy salt dough recipe, then use biscuit cutters to make your own shapes. Kids can then get as creative (or messy!) as they like with the decoration. Learn how to make salt dough Christmas decorations with our handy guide.
2. Reindeer hot chocolate cones
These fun characters make the perfect quick and easy Christmas gift! Follow our steps for how to make hot chocolate cones, customising them with whatever sweet treats you might have lurking in the cupboard – we went for mini marshmallows and chocolate drops, but glacé cherries or sprinkles would also work well. Kids will love adding the googly eyes and pom-pom nose!
3. Easy potato stamp Christmas cards
Get your little ones to make their own Christmas cards for friends and family this year when you make your own potato stamps. Adults will definitely need to help make the stamps, as you need a knife to cut out the shapes, but once that’s done there’s really no end to the fun you can have with a set of potato stamps and some brightly coloured poster paint. Try other ideas, too – make your own wrapping paper, decorate gift bags or make a picture.
4. Homemade snow globe
It’s easier than you think to make a homemade snow globe – our version uses a few teaspoons of glycerine and some biodegradable glitter to make a snowy scene, but you can also use baby oil. Place any waterproof figurine inside; an old decoration from the Christmas tree works particularly well. Kids will be so proud of their final masterpiece, be sure to display it in pride of place!
5. Fake snow activity
Younger children especially will love this tactile craft project. Learn how to make fake snow using just cornflour and bicarbonate of soda, then let the kids sculpt their own miniature snowmen or make little snow scenes in the kitchen. Best of all, it only takes 5 minutes to make a batch.
6. Pasta wreath Christmas card
After an easy homemade Christmas card idea? Make super simple wreaths with painted pasta shapes and ribbons. Use green acrylic to colour the pasta, leave them to dry, then stick to card in a circle shape (weighing them down with a plate or book will help the pasta bond with the paper). Then stick on a ribbon bow, or pom-poms to create baubles. Festive, foody and fun!
7. Cork penguins & snowmen
These cute little critters are a great use for old wine bottle corks (or a good excuse to crack into a few more bottles!). Paint the corks with two layers of white acrylic, then draw the penguins and snowmen’s faces and bodies on the dried corks with black and orange permanent markers. Glue strips of green felt around the corks for scarves, then screw an eyelet screw (the kind you use to hang pictures) into the top of each figure. Thread a stretch of ribbon through each eyelet hook and hang your finished figures from the Christmas tree.
8. Cookie cutter baubles
Decorate your tree with something delightfully food-y this Christmas – gingerbead cutters! You’ll need ribbon, festive gingerbread cutters and old Christmas cards or a pack of Christmas scrapbooking paper. Trace the shape of each cutter onto different cards (or paper) with a pencil, then cut out the shapes. Glue around the edge of each cutter (a hot glue gun or tube of strong glue with a nozzle is easiest for this), then stick the cut-out card in place. Leave to dry. Poke a 1cm horizontal line in the card along the top of each bauble with a wide-eyed needle. Thread the needle with a strip of ribbon and pull through the hole of your first bauble, then remove the needle and tie a knot with the ribbon. Repeat with the rest of the baubles, then hang from your Christmas tree.
9. Handprinted wrapping paper
Paint the palms of your child’s hands with red paint and their fingers with white paint, then press onto brown paper to make Father Christmas faces. Leave the designs to dry, then add details with a black marker. As well as handprints, you can also create festive designs with thumbprints: try white thumbprint snowmen (using a black pen to draw on eyes and mouths and coloured marker pens for noses and scarves); black and white thumbprint penguins (using an orange pen for noses); or brown thumbprint Rudolphs (using a red pen for noses and a black pen for eyes and mouths).
10. Pine cone Christmas trees
Collect pine cones on a wintry walk with the kids to make these mini Christmas tree decorations for your home or child’s dollhouse. Cover a table with newspaper and spray the cones with metallic silver paint. Cut little stars from card and spray these with silver paint, too. Once dry, sit the pine cone trees in little glasses or pots, attach the stars to the top with glue and surround with used matchboxes or raisin packets covered in off-cuts of wrapping paper to look like miniature presents.
11. Lolly stick tree decorations
Paint 4 lolly sticks white on one side and set aside to dry on a sheet of newspaper, then paint the other side and set aside. Paint 4 lolly sticks red in the same way, and 4 green. To make a snowflake, glue 2 white sticks at the centre in a cross shape, then another 2. Glue both crosses together at a diagonal angle. Hold firmly in place until set. To make a tree, use the scissors to trim 3 green lolly sticks to size, and glue them horizonally across a red lolly stick (for the trunk) with the longest stick at the bottom and the shortest at the top, and the blunt end facing up. For a Rudolph decoration, glue 2 red sticks into a ‘V’ shape, then another red stick about a third of the way down across the ‘V’ (the blunt ends will be antlers and ears). To make a candy cane, trim three pieces from a white lolly stick and glue together into a hook shape. Glue the hook to another white lolly stick. Use a brush and different coloured paints to finish your decorations, dotting baubles onto the tree, blue arrows on the snowflake, red stripes across the candy canes and two black eyes and a red nose at the pointed tip for Rudolph. Cut 10cm lengths of ribbon and glue both ends in a loop on the back of each decoration.
12. Present toppers
It’s best to choose your dried flowers and foliage according to the size of the present you’re wrapping. For a large gift, you might want to combine dried grass flowers with a selection of dried seed heads, like poppy or wild carrot. For a smaller gift, use an individual stem like a strawflower (helichrysum). If you are picking flowers and grasses, make sure to dry them well by hanging in small bunches in a dark place. Once you have your dried flowers and foliage, choose which elements you think will look good sprayed with metallic paint. We like to have one hero item that is metallic, and leave the rest natural. Lay the items you’re spraying on sheets of old newspaper or card and spray evenly. Once dry, turn and repeat. Assemble your posy and tie neatly with twine. Wind the twine around the stems a dozen or so times to create a collar, which is then tied off at the back of the posy. Trim all stems neatly below the twine to give a smart finish. Tuck the posy into a ribbon or string on your present. Finish with a luggage tag, if you like, and write a message.
13. Paper snowflakes
You only need paper, scissors and a sprinkle of festive spirit for this super easy activity. Making paper snowflakes is a great project for all ages – younger kids can use safe scissors and a bigger piece of paper to make it easier, whereas older kids and grown-ups alike will enjoy the challenge of making an intricate design. Best of all, every snowflake is unique – so you can be as creative as you like. You will need a square piece of paper (if using A4 paper, simply fold the bottom of the paper upwards into a triangle and cut away the excess) and scissors. Fold a square piece of paper into a triangle.Fold the triangle in half again, to make a smaller triangle. Fold over the right hand side of the triangle so that you are folding into thirds. Turn the paper over. Repeat the fold as you did for step three, this time on the other side. Use scissors to cut straight across the top, as shown, so that you are left with a thin folded triangle. Now you can cut any shape into the folded snowflake, being careful not to make any cuts that go all the way across (this will break your snowflake). When you’re happy with your shapes, unfold your snowflake to reveal your finished design!
14. Toy-box table place settings
Raid the kids’ toy box for little plastic animals and toy cars to decorate your Christmas table. Write the names of your friends and family on labels and assign each person a toy. Wrap old raisin packets in scraps of wrapping paper to look like miniature presents, then tie to the top of the cars with twine. Alternatively, top the cars with miniature bottle brush Christmas trees. Make easy Father Christmas hats for the toys from white cupcake cases: draw a solid red circle on each wrapper, leaving about 1cm border at the edge, then fold in half and halve again. Wrap into a cone, glue into shape and stick a little white pompom to the top of each hat, then pop on the toy animals’ heads. If you have any corks left over from making cork snowmen (see above), you can make photo name place settings, too: cut a slit in the top of each cork and slide in a name tag and photo of each of your guests.
15. Matchbox angel
This sleeping angel makes a lovely keepsake or gift. To make the bed, cover a large, empty matchbox in snowflake-patterned wrapping paper and cut out a rectangle of green felt to fit inside the box. To make the angel, paint ¾ of a wooden ice lolly stick with white paint (for her dress), then decorate the top of the stick with yellow paint (for her hair). Use marker pens to draw on eyes and a mouth, then varnish the angel with simple craft varnish. To make her halo, fold a silver foil twist tag (the kind that comes with sandwich bags) around her head and snip away the excess at the back. Cut wings from a scrap of fabric and glue in place. Glue buttons or little wooden decorations in place on your angel, if you like. Find a matchbox-sized bag to hold the finished gift and decorate with ribbon or buttons. Cut out a festive message from a Christmas catalogue or magazine and stick it onto a gift label, then attach to the gift bag.
16. Sewing box Christmas cards
Give the kids a selection of fabric ribbon, fabric off-cuts and buttons and let them make their own cards. Use glue to stick the ribbon and buttons in place. You can make a Christmas angel card using the lolly stick angel from the matchbox craft project above. Alternatively, make mini versions of these cards as gift tags.
17. Christmas song lyric tapestry
Tweens and teens can make a tapestry of their favourite Christmas song. Start by writing the lyrics on a piece of plain A4-sized cross-stitch canvas with a pencil. Use contrasting colours of cross-stitch cotton thread to sew your design in a simple neat backstitch. Frame your finished embroidery and give as a gift or keep to display on Christmas mantlepiece.
18. Peg doll & cardboard nativity
Make nativity scene figures by decorating plain wooden peg dolls with craft paints and marker pens. Varnish with craft varnish and leave to dry. Use a small pile of shredded paper for the manger. Create a backdrop of a stable scene with two sides of a used cardboard box – cut out the shape of a stable from one flap, then cut out a window and door from the same flap. Fold at the box’s natural crease to form a supporting base. Cut out a small piece of baking parchment and tape over the back of the window and door. Place battery-powered fairy lights behind the baking parchment to light up the stable. You can tape the cardboard base in place on a tray or shelf once finished and use the battery pack from the lights (or something else with a bit of weight to it) to prop it up at the back. We added a little glue and white glitter along the roof of our stable for snow, as well as a simple star of Bethlehem.
19. Citrus candle holders & garland
Cut the tops off three oranges, about two-thirds of the way up, using a small, sharp knife. Working with them one by one, carefully push the knife between the orange peel and the flesh, cutting all the way around until the flesh is loose and can be pulled out (enjoy as a snack or in a smoothie). Scoop out any remaining bits using a dessertspoon, making sure all the flesh and fibres are pulled away, leaving behind the smooth, white pith. Push a small star-shaped biscuit cutter through the orange peel to make a few holes all over and create a pattern – not too many (you want the orange peel to hold its shape). Put a tealight in each orange peel holder and arrange on a table. To make the garland, thread a large needle with some brown string and pull it through the centre of each star-shaped orange peel off-cut. Continue threading until all the off-cuts are used, then cut the string to your desired length. Use the garland to decorate the tree or your Christmas table.
20. Potato print fabric for gift hampers
Lay some old newspaper out on a clean, dry, flat surface. Lay a square piece of ironed cotton fabric (about 80 x 80cm) on top. Cut a potato in half using a small, sharp knife. Use a marker pen to lightly sketch your design onto the cut surface of the potato (we opted for a striped candy cane with one half and a bauble with the other). Carefully cut out the space around your design using the knife. Use some kitchen paper to pat the cut side of the potato dry. With a paintbrush, brush a thin layer of acrylic fabric paint over the design. Press the potato down firmly onto the fabric, making sure not to move it to avoid smudging the design. Apply more paint and repeat to make a pattern. Leave the fabric to dry completely overnight. Once the fabric is dry, iron each side following the manufacturer’s instructions for the paint. Lay the fabric out, printed-side down, and put a filled gift box (about 19 x 19 x 11cm high) in the middle. Tie a flat knot with corners 1 and 2, pulling the knot tightly on the hamper. Then, tie another flat knot with corners 3 and 4 over the previous knot. This will give the pretty effect of a knot with four points.
Discover more ideas for kids at Christmas
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Have you tried any of these activities with your kids? We’d love to know in the comments below…
