When you "Need a Little Christmas," these crafts can get you in the spirit of the season.
You and your children can make Christmas ornaments inspired by popular children's tales and classic Christmas songs using candies and found objects. Homemade Christmas ornaments have a personal touch that is missing from mass-produced items. Simple, handmade items can be used year after year, long after electronic gadgets and mass-produced toys have stopped working or lost their appeal. A dust-off and an annual paint touch-up and they are ready for the next holiday season.
"Roasting Chestnuts" Candy Ornament
Make homemade Christmas ornaments inspired by the song lyrics, "Chesnuts roasting on an open fire."
This candy ornament was inspired by "The Christmas Song" and by Disney's Kaboose.com craft expert Amanda Formaro's Cardboard Tube Campfire craft. Instead of cardboard tubes, tissue paper and cotton balls, use large, soft chocolate toffee roll candy, orange, lemon and strawberry fruit leather and buckeye candies. Fuse three to five unwrapped soft chocolate toffee roll candies to look like stacked wood for a fire. Cut flames from fruit leather and secure them to the logs using royal icing.
Mix 1/2 cup of nonfat dry milk, 2 cups of powdered sugar and 1 cup of peanut butter together. Roll the mixture into 1-inch diameter balls to make the centers for your buckeye candies. Skewer three candies on toothpicks and dip them into melted chocolate chips, leaving an uncoated area about the size of a nickel. Push the uncoated end of the toothpicks through the logs to secure them. These are your chestnuts.
Place each roasting chestnut candy creation in a small, clear confectioner's bag tied with curling ribbon. Add an extra loop of ribbon for a hanger. These ornaments must be refrigerated or discarded if they are not eaten within a month.
Pies and Patty Pans
Beatrix Potter's tale of a missing pie tin inspired this ornament.
Beatrix Potter's tale, "The Pie and the Patty-Pan" inspired this ornament. Read the story together with your child before you begin this craft. Mark a cat, dog or crow pattern in the bottom of an aluminum snack-size pie tin to represent Ribby the cat, Duchess the dog or Dr. Maggoty the jackdaw. Use an awl or skewer to punch holes through the pan where you marked out your pattern. Punch a hole in the rim of the pan and tie a loop of gold cord through it to use as a hanger. Hang these ornaments in front of a Christmas light for best effect.
Milk Carton Dickens Houses
If you can't find paper milk cartons, call a local school.
Read Charles Dickens' tale, "A Christmas Carol," before making these ornaments. Tape the tops of half-pint and pint-size paper milk cartons closed. Paint the cartons as desired to resemble houses. Paint windows and doors on the sides of each house. Glue a mini wreath above each door. Punch a hole in the peak of each carton so that you can add a loop of metallic cord to use as an ornament hanger.
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