Handmade Holidays

Creative Mom CAROLINE says: During the holiday season, I'm insanely busy working on handmade gifts to give my family and friends. I enlist the help of my children in this endeavor too, and we become busy little elves at work! After years of homemade gift giving, I've discovered that most people genuinely appreciate something given from the heart. Even more so, they adore anything made by children. Now, that's a total holiday perk for all parents!

Working on something with the kiddos can become a little hectic, I know, but given the right project, it is easier than you might think. These Gumdrop Pomanders from Crafty Crow are one of our family favorites - easy and festive!

Gumdrop Pomander

I also find it amazing how, if you let them take the lead, kids think of the most adorable gift ideas! Another great resource for handmade holiday gift ideas is the crafts area of Kaboose, which has a treasure trove of holiday projects for children. Disney's Family Fun is also an inspiring place to visit; I always find their ideas straightforward and doable -- and many encourage up-cycling, which I appreciate.

Speaking of up-cycling, last week my five year-old and I crafted some holiday ornaments out of empty ribbon spools. We painted the cardboard spools, glittered them and tied some pretty ribbon around them for hanging. This project was a huge hit with the kids, mostly because they could get messy with some paint! Whenever my kids paint, I'm a fan of Crayola products because they're not expensive, but they're always non-toxic. If you don't mind investing a little more in their art supplies, you can find terrific paints at Eco-Kids. They offer amazing non-toxic art supplies packaged in an environmentally friendly way.

During all our craft painting sessions, I typically use fun aprons for the children to keep their clothes from getting too splattered. These also make wonderful gifts for other friends with children. You or your tots can decorate them and wrap them in a festive way. You can also give the aprons with a set of supplies ready to be decorated by your crafty friends!

I'll leave you with a slideshow of other online crafts for inspiration...

See? When you start thinking about handmade gift-giving, the possibilities are endless. Before you know it, you have a snowball of ideas: perfect for the holidays!

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