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Posts Tagged ‘homemade crafts’

The holidays are just around the corner, and everywhere you go there are silver bells, and lit up trees, and lights on houses, and candles in windows and everything and everyone is doing their best to get into the holiday spirit. A lot of people are still trying to recover from some of the struggle that our country has faced in the last few years, and “simple Christmas” is largely the theme this year. Even the White House was decorated with a homemade, arts and crafty feel this year! So let’s explore some of the crafts, decorations, and ornaments that you can make at home, using food!

You Will Need:
Apples
Oranges
Popcorn (unbuttered, unsalted)
Honey or Peanut Butter
Dried or Fresh Cranberries
Cinnamon Sticks
Vanilla Beans
Large Pretzels
Candy Canes
4-6 cans, with labels removed and washed
A hammer
Several nails
12 baby food jars
Ornament hooks
Strong Thread
A needle
A box of Cheerios
A box of Apple Jacks
Salt Dough (recipe below)
Acrylic Paint
Paint Brushes
A glue gun
Newspaper
Glitter and other such decorative items

I know. It’s a huge list. But you don’t have to make every item that we go over today. Just a few is okay.  Lets get to work!

Popcorn Garland! (May be too tedious for younger kids)

Pop a couple of bags of popcorn and fill a bowl full of dried or fresh cranberries. Using the needle and thread, string the popcorn and cranberries until you reach a length that will wrap a few times around your Christmas tree, or you can hang from a balcony or railing.

Popcorn Ball Ornaments
Dip a single piece of popcorn in honey or penaut butter. Stick more pieces of popcorn until it forms a ball shape. Poke an ornament hanger into one end, and then paint, or hang just as it is!

Cereal Garland
String Apple Jacks and Cheerios in alternating colors on some string. Try putting them one on top of the other (lllllllllllll), or threading two strands of string in and out of the holes to look like (OOOOOOO).

Carved Apples
Carve faces, words, or shapes into small red and green apples. Coat the freshly carved spots with petroleum jelly or Vaseline to slow the browning process from where the sugar in the apple reacts with oxygen from the air. Hang the apples in your tree like ornaments, or carve out the top about halfway down and place a small votive candle in it.

Apple and Orange Slices
Slice up a dozen apples and oranges and lay them on parchment paper covered cookie sheets. Bake them in the oven @ 200*F until they are dry or leave them out on a countertop to air dry (takes a lot longer). Hang the slices on your tree for a fragrant and country-style look this season!

Pretzels
Hanging a handful of large crunchy pretzels on your tree might seem a little out of the ordinary, but they make truly classic ornaments, and then don’t cost too much! The bigger the pretzel the better. You can even paint them with acrylic paint for a festive look.

Candy Canes
A couple dozen candy canes aren’t hard to find for cheap, especially the little tiny miniature ones that you can get at dollar stores and discount stores all over the place. Candy canes don’t have to be white and red anymore either, they have fruit and other flavors and colors that can complement any decor.

Baby Food Jars
Wash and remove the labels from a dozen or so baby food jars. Using your hammer and nail, poke two holes in the tops of the jars and thread an ornament hook into the holes so that it is secure. You might want to twist it a few times to make sure that it is tight. Add a drop of glue from your glue gun to reinforce it. Now you have the choice of painting the outside of your jar, or putting things inside the jar, like glitter and beads and leaving it clear. When you are done either filling or painting the jar, drop a bead of glue on the rim, then screw on the lid so that it stays sealed. This is a great look for houses with new babies!

CAN-dle Holders
Wash and rinse a few steel or aluminum cans, the kind your veggies come in is great. Use a permanent maker to make a shape on the outside of the can using dots, then use the hammer and nail to poke holes in the can where the dots are. Try a star or a tree or a heart, the more creative the better. Better to let an adult do the hammering, to protect little fingers and thumbs. When your design is done, simply drop a votive candle or tea light in the can, and your design with light up! You can paint the outside of the cans if you want to, but the simple metal looks is classic.

Salt Dough Ornaments
1 Cup of Salt
1 Cup of Flour
1/2 Cup of Water
Food Coloring

Mix the flour and salt together, mix the food coloring in with the water, then add the water to the dry ingredients.  Knead the dough to combine. If the dough is too sticky add more flour, if it is too crumbly add more water. Continue to knead the dough until it is the color you’d like and has the consistency of Play-Doh. Roll the dough out and use cookie cutters or plastic knives, spoons, any tools you would like to make shapes, or build your own models out of the dough. When you are done secure an ornament hook in the top of the ornament and let them air dry or bake them at 200*F until they dry. You can paint them when they are dry and cool if you’d prefer to do that instead of using food coloring. If you only have kosher or really GRAINY salt, spin it in a food processor until it is fine, or your dough will look gritty. If you don’t use all the dough it should keep pretty well in a sealed container for two or three days, but its going to dry out eventually.