Two Great Christmas Gifts for Kids to Make!

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        Okay, I know that it is not Halloween yet, but let's face it, if you have kids and you enjoy creating homemade gifts with them, it is time to start thinking about it.  You don't want to have to rush and get things done at the last minute. How nice would it be to have everything done early and to be able to just enjoy the season without stress?
​      Some of my favorite gifts that I have received from my children have been homemade.  Kids love to make gifts and they get so excited about giving them. The excited looks on their faces as you open their gifts is so heartwarming and memorable.  Letting children make and give gifts is a great way to teach them to take the focus off of themselves and to think about others.  

         My own children are grown now, but sometimes they still make homemade gifts! When they were young, I would help them think of inexpensive gifts to make for friends and teachers, as well as for their siblings. Now, I think in terms of my grandchildren.  I have enjoyed, in recent years,  helping them think of things to give to their parents or siblings.  That is what was on my mind as I took a trip to the Dollar Tree recently and came up with a couple of fun crafts that would be great for kids to make.

Christmas at the Tree is your one-stop shop for décor, holiday inspiration, gift ideas, recipes, and more!

      Dollar Tree is beginning to put out their Christmas decorations.  I have learned to get there early to get the good items quickly! Here is a gallery of some of the things I saw, (and perhaps even purchased!).

They have these bags of light snow styro pellets that are great for snowy crafts! They also have the clear ornaments!

If you don't want to make them yourself, they have really cute ready made ornaments.

These are pretty velvet poinsettias. Velvet is a trend in fashion this year, so maybe in decor as well!

      One thing that I have seen done, and have always wanted to do myself, is to decorate wooden spoons or wooden salad tongs.  This would be such an easy craft kids to do.  Dollar has a great selection of wooden salad tongs, so I brought some home.  These could be decorated for the holidays, or to match a kitchen.  As a mom, I would have loved receiving a set of these.  Here is how I decorated mine:

Here are the tongs as they came from the store.

I taped them with painter's tape to the place I wanted the paint to stop. This gives a clean line.

I decided to make my handles red. Take the tape off while the paint is still wet.

Nice clean lines. Let them dry before applying polka dots.

I used a new pencil eraser to make the dot. I practiced first on my palette. I found that I could do 2 dots before reloading with paint.

When they were finished drying, I sprayed just the painted handles with crystal clear acrylic spray to protect the paint. Don't they look cute with my red bowl? Any kid could do this.

Add a bowl and you have got a super great gift even from an adult or for a wedding or shower gift!

       Another product that I am especially partial to is the wide variety of duct tape that they sell at the Dollar Tree! I did a post about it  here.  Look at some of these cute styles:

      A really cute idea to do with this duct tape is to make simple picture frames, similar tothese that I taught before.  Only this time we just covered tongue depressors with alternating  colors of duct tape, glue them together with E6000 glue, put a cross piece across the back to stabilize, add a clip at the top and VOILA!  

Remember those clips that I used on the other frames? Those are pictures of one of my beautiful daughters and one of my beautiful granddaughters.

      Whelp! There you go! Two great crafts that would be fun and super easy for kids to make and give as gifts this year and at very little cost!  Check out Dollar Tree and let your mind imagine what you could do with the myriad of things they carry!  If you come up with some great ideas, let me know!