Crafting with kids: Simple Christmas decorations

I have happy memories of childhood Christmases and making crackers and paper chains. They’re so simple for children to make with little, if any, adult help and are such fun to do. For this month’s #BostikBlogger craft, I’ve been revisiting my childhood and having fun making some simple Christmas decorations with Sophie.

 

 

Christmas crackers

You will need:

• Toilet roll tubes
• Tissue or crepe paper
• Scissors
• A glue stick (we used a Bostik Blu Stick)
• A small wrapped chocolate or sweet
• Raffia or ribbon
• Sequins and Christmassy foil shapes to decorate

 

1) Cut a piece of tissue or crepe paper that is big enough to wrap around the toilet roll and about twice the length.

 

 

 

2) Cover the toilet roll tube in glue.

 

 

 

3) Place in the middle of the tissue paper and roll to wrap the tissue paper around it.

 

 

 

4) Place a small wrapped chocolate or sweet inside the toilet roll tube.

 

5) Tie a piece of ribbon or raffia around the tissue paper at each end of the toilet roll tube.

 

 

 

6) Glue sequins and Christmassy foil shapes on the cracker to decorate.

 

 

 

Paper chains

You will need:

• Coloured paper
• A glue stick (we used a Bostik Glu Stick)
• Scissors

 

1) Cut the coloured paper into strips approximately 2cm wide.

 

 

 

2) Stick the ends of one strip together to make a circle shape.

 

 

 

3) Pass the next strip through the centre of the previous circle shape and glue the ends together to another circle shape interlocked with the first.

 

 

4) Repeat step 3 until your paper chain reaches the desired length.

 

 

Making paper chains is a nice activity for pattern recognition as well as helping with fine motor skills. Sophie enjoyed using five colours in a repeated pattern.

 

We were sent a box of Bostik craft materials as part of being a Tots100 #BostikBlogger