ornament Archives - JDaniel4s Mom

Gingerbread Man Craft- Exploring Shapes

December 6, 2017 By Deirdre

Save some of the cardboard delivery boxes you receive in the mail to create this gingerbread man craft. You can cut the pieces out for your younger children. Older children can cut out the shapes themselves. Children of all ages can put the gingerbread man together and decorate it.

Creating the Gingerbread Man Craft

Getting the Cardboard Shapes Ready

Each of your children is going to need the following shapes cut out of cardboard (You can use cardstock instead if you like. It is much easier to cut.)

One Circle
Two Long Rectangles
One Square
Two Long Triangles

You will need to gather some or all of the decorating supplies below:

White Crayons
Buttons
Glue Sticks
Markers
Ribbons
Pom-Poms
Wiggly Eyes
Stickers

Constructing the Gingerbread Man

Your children may choose to have triangular legs and rectangular arms. They could make the body the circle and the square the head. The gingerbread man your children create doesn’t need to look just like the one we made.

Once they have the shapes arrange the way they want them to be, they can glue the gingerbread man together.

Decorating the Gingerbread Man

There isn’t a wrong way to decorate the gingerbread man although making sure he has eyes, nose and a mouth is probably important.

When they have finished decorating their gingerbread man craft, you can cord or ribbon to the back on it to use it as an ornament.

If you like this Christmas craft, here are some more Christmas crafts you will want to explore.

Five Little Christmas Tree Handprint Craft

Hanger Reindeer

Candy Cane Reindeer

Birthday Hat Christmas Tree

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The Gingerbread Boy by Jan Brett is the Virtual Book Club book of the week, here are some more activities based on the book.

Gingerbread House Glyph – Mama Smiles

Let’s Explore Gingerbread Patterning – My Storytime Corner

Gingerbread Baby Scissor Skills – School time snippets

Foam Gingerbread Christmas Busy Bag- Views From a Step Stool

Gingerbread Man Shape Game – Rainy Day Mum

Fingerprint Gingerbread Man Ornament – The Educators’ Spin On It

Homemade Ornaments- Ribbon Candy

November 24, 2015 By Deirdre

My grandmother always seemed to have ribbon candy in a covered candy dish in her living room at Christmas time. I still think of it at Christmas time. Recently we made our own ribbon candy homemade ornaments for our tree. When I see them hanging up I am sure I will think of my grandmother.

My son just loves to use our hole punch. Sometimes he punches holes in random scraps of paper. For this craft he punch holes about two inches apart in a piece of ribbon that was folded in half. (The ribbon needed to be folded so that it was thick enough to punch holes in it.)

When the holes didn’t fall off of the ribbon and hung their by a few threads, we trimmed them off with scissors. Just a snip or two set them free. Many fell off on their own.

When all the holes had been made, we got the pipe cleaners project ready. Each pipe cleaner got had a knot made at the end of it to keep the ribbon from falling off.

Then the pipe cleaner was place in the first hole at one end of the ribbon. It was then folded back and the next hole was thread through. The ribbon was folded forward and the next hole was thread. We repeated this process until be reached the last hole.

The long end of the pipe cleaner was then made into a hook so, we could hang these homemade ornaments.

This craft is so easy to make! It also uses several fine motor skills. Children punch holes, thread, and knot. Each of these skills can be challenging for some kids. While others will think they are a piece of cake. Both groups will make really cool homemade ornaments.

Here are some other homemade ornaments that work on fine motor skills:

Christmas DIY Wreath

Threaded Christmas Star

Fine Motor Skills- Christmas DIY Wreath Ornament

November 20, 2015 By Deirdre

After having so much fun threading beads for our threaded star tree, we made an ornament by threading a pipe cleaner. It was the second in our series of three Christmas ornaments that focused using our fine motor skills.

We have bunch of burlap left from a project we did last summer for Totschooling. The loose weave of burlap makes it perfect for weaving. Pipe cleaners slip easily through its open space.

Christmas Wreath Ornament

Materials

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Directions:

We started using our fine motor skills to make this Christmas ornament by cutting some green burlap into strips a foot long. They were about three inches wide.

Next we wove sparkly and holiday colored pipe cleaner through the burlap. There were about 2 inches between stitches. We continued weaving up and down until we reached about two inches for the end of the strip.

As we wove the pipe cleaner through the burlap, we pushed it down the pipe cleaner. That gave us a bunch of burlap at one end.

Then we formed the pipe cleaner into a circle and tied a knot to close off the circle. The ends of the pipe cleaner were cut up close to the knot.

The bunch burlap was then pushed around the circle we created. We tried to even out the folds of burlap. It helped you create a balanced wreath.

A second pipe cleaner of another color was used to make a bow. We used a little piece from the first pipe cleaner to attach the bow to the wreath.

Variations:

You could add a bead to the pipe cleaner between your stitches. They would look like berries on your wreath.

We used green burlap to make our wreath. I think you could used any color of burlap that you like. I think tan or red would look pretty too.

Here are some other wonderful Christmas fine motor skills based crafts:

Threaded Star Tree

Doily Painted Angel

Branch Bracelets

Homemade Christmas Ornaments for Kids to Make

November 12, 2015 By Deirdre

The ornaments my son has made are the ones I love best on our Christmas tree. They may not be fancy or elaborately made, but they touch my heart. We made some of them together. Some he made a school. I am going to share a few that we have made with you and some that are from others. I hope you will make some of these homemade Christmas Ornaments for kids with the children in your life. When you see them on your tree, they will probably be the ones you love best too.

Homemade Christmas Ornaments

White Clay Ornaments by Happy Hooligans can be decorated with random colored beads or ones that Christmas colored. I love their stark white surfaces.

Craft Stick Ornaments by Hands On: As We Grow are super simple to make. You can decorate them with holiday theme! You can have your children let their imaginations go wild as they decorate these fun trees..

Homemade Santa Star by Buggy and Buddy are so whimsical. It will be fun to see what kind of face your children decide to give Santa.

Mason Jar Lid Snowman Ornament by Crafty Morning will be fun to make. I think it would be fun to try different textured materials for the snowman’s nose. I just love the noodle on his hat!

Elmer Ornament by Mama Miss is a great fine motor activity. The texture and colors in this ornament will add a unique and fun flair to your tree.

Mitten Ornament by Adventure in a Box is based on the story The Mitten. It is one of my son’s favorite Christmas books. If you have children that love the story too, you will so want to make this ornament with them.

Beaded Candy Canes by Fountain Avenue Kitchen are simple and cool. I love the texture of the beads against the fuzz of the pipe cleaner.

Doili Painted Ornaments by JDaniel4’s Mom (That’s me!) hang on my tree every year. I just love the lace print the doile made on the card stock.

Branch Bracelets are another of my projects. We created these decorative ornaments to slip onto the branches of our tree like a piece of jewelry.

Christmas Ornaments for Kids- Doily Painted Angels

November 19, 2014 By Deirdre

We made branch bracelets last year for our Christmas tree so, when my sister Shell asked us to make angel ornaments I knew we could. The angel ornaments will be used to decorate a Christmas tree and the walls of my mom’s room. Her studio apartment in an assisted living home is kind of drab. It really needs to be dressed up.

We are making our Christmas ornaments and decorating her room early. The end of the window of months my mom was given after being diagnosed with cancer last winter will arrive in December. She may live past it, but we really have know idea.

How to Make the Christmas Ornaments

I decided to create some angel patterns on the computer. We could then cut out the outline and decorate it or trace it onto construction paper. We ended up tracing it onto light blue construction paper. (Here is a copy of the outline if you would like to download it and use it.)

After the angels had one been traced and cut out, we painted them with tempera painted. Angels seem to be light and feathery to me so, we took out some doilies leftover from Easter and used them as a stencil to created a feather or lacy effect.

It was really simple to do. We simply place s paper doily over one of the angels at a time. Then we brushed and dabbed the paint over the doily with a sponge brush. The cutout areas of the doily made a really pretty design on the angels.

We used white paint on some of the angels and blue paint on the others. I think both colors ended up looking great. When you try this at home you may want to create angels in two different colors too.

We then had to add a way to hang the angels up. We could have used a hole punch to create a hole in each angel, but the big hole wouldn’t look great we decided. Instead we threaded a needle with red yarn and pushed it through the top of each angels head. The red yarn added a contrast in color to white and blue.

There is something wonderful about having a Christmas ornaments that are homemade on a tree. My mom will have homemade angels made by each of her grandchildren. I bet their are other grandmothers that would enjoy having painted angels on their trees too.

If you end up making angels or you have a favorite Christmas ornaments you want me to know about, please leave a comment below or on my Facebook page.