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Having done years of Girl Scouts, Cub Scouts, teaching pre-school, and raising two kids,we've done TONS of this stuff.
You can get these mini-grapevine-wreaths quite cheaply nowadays. Provide an assortment of ribbons, beans, dried flowers, glitter, and let the kids loose. You can also take Polaroids of the kids, cut out the picture, and hot glue it to the back of the wreath for a personalized ornament.
Stringing red and white beans onto a pipe cleaner makes a great candy[cane. Those funny-looking beads that remind me of bones nestle beautifully for this.
Glue wiggly eyes, a red pompon nose, and antlers to a candy cane or a clothespin or one of those large colored bulbs makes a cute Rudolph. I have a pair of earrings of those.
This is good for younger hildren's crafts: provide posterboard cut-outs in holiday shapes (star, tree, et.) and various kinds of pata, like rotelli, wagonwheels, etc. When dry, spray the whole thing with gold spray paint. Sounds simple but it comes out very pretty!
Collect a bunch of pinecones and provide glitter, spangles, pompons, and the kids will make them into Trees.
If you have the time and patience, you can make salt-dough and use your christmas cookie-cutters. They will need to have a hook embedded and then be baked and perhaps painted afterwards.
My kids are now 16 and 21. When we decorate our christmas tree now, I'd estimate that 80% of the ornaments are their childhood creations, and the other 20% are mostly gifts given to me as scout leader or teacher or projets the kis and I did together. Trimming the tree is a real trip down memory lane. every ornament has a story. One of our favorites is a set of 4 green balls, with felt eye-masks and wiggly eyes... unquestionably the four Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.
Rani
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