We’ve all been there before. It’s just a few days until the winter holidays and your kids don’t have a present to give their favorite teacher, grandmother, best friend, basketball coach, you name it. Want to help your kids get creative and make their own holiday gifts? Enjoy these five simple yet crafty gift ideas from our award-winning children’s magazines!
Draft Snake
Winter days can be a little drafty. Scare away a winter draft and create the perfect environment to snuggle up with a good read using this simple craft! This activity comes from the November/December issue of ASK Magazine!
What you’ll need:
- Old pair of tights (get grown-up’s permission to cut them up!)
- Clean plastic garbage bag
- Dried beans
- String
- Cotton stuffing
- Googly eyes
- Scissors and glue
What to do:
- Loosely fill one long side of a clean garbage bag with dried beans. Place cotton stuffing on top of beans. Roll up the bag lengthwise, and tie it loosely into sections so the beans and stuffing don’t move around too much.
- Cut a leg off the tights. The foot will be the head of your snake. Slide the filled garbage bag into the leg with the bean side down. Tie the opening closed.
- Decorate your snake and add the googly eyes. You can even add a piece of ribbon for a tongue!
- Place your draft snake along the bottom of a drafty door and stay warm!
Melting Snowman Hot Cocoa
This isn’t just a recipe– it’s a craft activity that you can give as a gift to friends, family, or teachers! Kids will love putting these adorable snowman cocoa jars together! “Melting Snowman Hot Cocoa” appeared in the “Ophelia’s Last Word” section of SPIDER Magazine.
What you’ll need:
- Mason jar with lid
- 1 cup of your favorite hot cocoa mix
- 4 to 6 large marshmallows
- Ribbon
- Edible-ink pens
- Pencil
- Cellophane bag with twisty tie
- Hole puncher
What to do:
- Use edible-ink pens to draw snowman faces on two of the marshmallows and buttons on the rest. Let dry for an hour.
- Fill the bag with 1 cup of hot cocoa mix. Twist closed with the tie.
- Place the bag of cocoa at the bottom of the jar. Arrange the marshmallows on top of the cocoa, facing out. Screw on the lid.
- Write the following recipe on your note card: 3 tablespoons of cocoa + 1 cup hot water or milk + marshmallows = melting snowman cocoa!
- Punch a hole in the note card. Pull a ribbon through the hole and tie the ribbon around the jar’s lid.
Homemade Snow Globe
What’s nicer than a little holiday world that you can hold in your hand? With just a little bit of help from grownups, these snow globes are the perfect winter-themed keepsake. They can even personalized to include some of the recipient’s favorite things! This craft comes from the November/December issue of ASK Magazine.
What you’ll need:
- Small, clean glass jar with tight lid
- Small plastic figurines that you don’t want back
- Waterproof glue (hot glue or superglue– ask an adult to help with this)
- 1 or 2 teaspoons silver or other metal glitter (white plastic glitter floats)
- About half a cup of glycerin (you can buy this at drug stores)
- Water
- Adult helper for gluing
What to do:
- Take the lid off the jar and compose a nice scene with your plastic figures on the inside of the lid. Make sure your scene fits inside the jar. Ask your adult helper to help you glue your scene into place. Waterproof glue is tricky, so use care!
- Add the glycerin and glitter to the jar, and fill to the very tip top with water. (Glycerin makes the glitter drop more slowly.)
- When the glue is dry, hold the jar over the sink and screw on the lid with the scene inside the jar. Some water will spill out. Decorate the base, if you like.
Twinkling Candleholder
Cheer up the dark winter nights with these pretty homemade candleholder crafts from SPIDER Magazine! You can use these with a real candle or a battery-powered tea light. This is the kind of sentimental decoration that relatives can bring out year after year for the holiday season!
What you’ll need:
- Dark-colored construction paper
- Colorful tissue paper
- Clean, small glass jar
- Small candle
- Scissors
- Glue stick
- Paper clip or clothespin
What to do:
- Cut a strip of construction paper so it wraps around the jar with a bit of overlap. You might need to glue on more construction paper to make the strip long enough.
- Fold the strip in half crosswise. Repeat two more times, and crease the fold well each time.
- Cut shapes along the folded edge of the paper. Don’t cut on the unfolded edges, and don’t cut all the way through! When you’re done, unfold the paper and admire your shapes.
- Cut tissue paper into pieces that are a little bit bigger than your cut-out shapes. Spread glue around one of the shapes and glue a piece of tissue paper over it. Repeat until all the shapes are covered with different colors of tissue paper.
- Carefully bend paper into a circle and glue the ends together. Use a paper clip or clothes pin to hold it in place.
- When the glue is dry, remove the paper clip and place the paper circle around the jar. Put the candle in the jar.
Peppermint Bark
Candy is always a sweet gift– and it’s even sweeter when you make it yourself! What could be a better treat for the holiday season than a combination of candy canes AND chocolate? Make your own delicious peppermint bark with this recipe from the November/ December issue of ASK Magazine!
What you’ll need:
- 2 cups (one 12-ounce bag) white chocolate chips
- 1/2 cup peppermint candies or broken candy canes
- Hammer
- Glass bowl or mixing cup
- Microwave
- Wax paper or parchment paper
- Plastic bag
- Spoon
What to do:
- Put peppermints into a plastic bag. Hit them with a hammer to break up into little pieces.
- Put the white chocolate chips into a glass bowl and melt them in the microwave. (This should take a few minutes at high heat. Check after each minute—don’t let it burn!) OR: Ask a grown-up to help you melt the chocolate on the stove in a double boiler. When it’s ready, the melted chocolate should feel about like thick frosting.
- Mix the crushed peppermint into the melted chocolate.
- Spread the melted mixture thinly on a piece of parchment paper or waxed paper.
- Let it cool. When it’s firm, break into pieces.
- For extra-fancy two-layer bark, melt 2 cups of dark chocolate chips in another bowl. Spread a thin layer of the warm dark chocolate on the wax paper. Then spread the peppermint/white chocolate mix on top, while the dark is still soft. This two-layer bark takes longer to cool—let it set overnight.
