Homemade Holiday Crafts

Salt Dough Ornaments:
Kids will love to make and decorate their own ornaments. You can use the recipe below to make ornaments, personalized gift tags or your children's keepsake handprint ornament.  Make holiday shapes using cookie cutters or design your own creation. The recipe is as simple as it gets. Mix 1 cup plain flour, 1 cup salt, 1/2 cup water. Mix and knead the dough well. Roll out with a rolling pin and cut out shapes. You can either poke holes in the ornaments with a straw before you bake them or hot glue a ribbon to the back once you have finished decorating them. Place in a 100-degree oven for 3 hours. Once they are out of the oven you can decorate with acrylic paints, glitter, pom poms, rhinestones, etc, and finish with a shiny decoupage sealant. 

Popcorn Garland:
My kids adore stringing popcorn every year. I am in charge of the needle and thread and their jobs are to push the popcorn through to the end of the thread. Add dried cranberries or other dried fruits such as oranges or apples throughout for a nature-inspired look. Hang on the Christmas tree or anywhere throughout the house. 

Decorate a Gingerbread House:
For those ambitious moms, you can make your own gingerbread. If you're strapped for time and just want to get to the fun part of decorating, then you'll be thrilled to learn that you can now buy a gingerbread house already assembled. Start with a piece of foam board covered with tin foil and place the house on there. Decorate with festive candy, gumdrops, square pretzels for windows, marshmallows for a lawn snowman and upside down ice cream cones for trees. 

Mason Jar Gifts:
Mason jars are so popular right now. It provides a nostalgic feel to anything you use it for. The kids can participate in decorating the jar and filling it with  colorful candy like candy canes, holiday m&ms or ribbon candy. Tie a ribbon around it and maybe a homemade salt dough ornament to make a personalized Teacher’s gift from your child. Another option is to fill with hot cocoa mix, mini marshmallows and some crushed candy canes.

Make Reindeer Food:
Lets not forget the most important of all. Oats and glitter make for a delicious reindeer snack. My kids will make little bags for their friends to sprinkle on their own lawn also. After all, if you don’t leave reindeer food out on your lawn on Christmas Eve how will those sweet reindeer have the energy to fly all over the world?