Nothing beats a handmade card from a child – everyone loves to receive them and it will keep your children occupied for a morning or afternoon at home, while you put the finishing touches to your Christmas preparations.
Packs of card blanks and envelopes are widely available in craft and stationary shops or you can buy coloured cardstock, cut and fold your own. Also available are pre-cut shapes, stickers and other decorations that will make this craft easier for younger children who are not able to use scissors to make the shapes they want.
Basic supplies:
- Card and Envelopes
- Coloured pens, pencils or crayons. Go big on reds, greens, gold and silvers so that you don’t run out of material to feed the festive inspiration!
Optional extras:
- Decorative papers in festive colours
- Craft scissors
- Paint or ink
- Glue stick
- Paper shapes
- Stickers/Transfers
- Glitter or tinsel
The simplest method would be to let your children draw directly onto the card; you may need to write a brief description if their style is a little abstract! For a more polished finished product you could ask them to draw on a piece of paper then mount it on a coloured background before sticking to the card.
Another easy but effective technique is to use finger, hand or even footprints; adding detail once the ink or paint is dry, for example:
- A brown thumb with a red fingerprint on one edge is the beginning of a friendly robin
- A thumb, middle and little finger can be used to make a snowman
- Two handprints and a foot become a reindeer’s face (use a red thumb print to make him into Rudolf)
- Create a fingerprint nativity scene
Create a festive scene using pre-cut shapes such as stars, triangles, circles and squares. Three green triangles make a stylised Christmas tree which can be topped with a star and adorned with colourful circles as baubles, for example, or a narrow triangle with a circle at its point could be an angel; draw in her wings, halo and other details.
If your children can handle scissors, they could fold a square of ordinary white paper in half three times; horizontally, vertically then diagonally and cut out sections so that when it is unfolded a lacy snowflake is revealed. Decorate with a little silver glitter and mount on a darker background for an eye-catching design.
These are just a few ideas to get started, let your children experiment with techniques to create individual designs to give to their friends and family. It goes without saying that craft materials must be appropriate for their age and they should be supervised to prevent accidents.