Hellobee Boards

I bought a container of little gems at the craft store and my 3.5 year old is obsessed with gluing them to things. We've done tree shapes cut from cardboard and Popsicle sticks (which I then glued into snowflakes). I don't do crafts with much prep involved because he's so hit or miss with his interest.

I also bought a $1 pad of Christmas stickers which he put on red and green construction paper.

Target dollar aisle has some good stuff for cheap stickers and foam shapes, gel clings, things to paint, etc. Dollar store too.

My kids LOVE putting beads on pipe cleaners. You can easily make a candy cane or snowflake if you have the right colors but anything is fun.

So far this season we have done:

- A gingerbread house. We bought the kit from Trader Joe's and I assembled the house part ahead and let it get solid (it only takes like 30 minutes to dry). I set out some toddler friendly candies - fruit snacks, gummy bears, little M&M type things, marshmallows - over things like sprinkles which are messy. My kids aren't old enough to handle the frosting themselves, but I stood by and squirted the frosting over the house and they decorated/ate for a while and loved it. And they have been great about not touching it and looking at it at our kitchen counter for 2 weeks now!

- Decorating cookies. Same thing. I baked some packaged sugar cookies that I cut out into shapes, iced them with a thin layer of tub icing, and gave them sprinkles in shakers with a drop cloth on the floor and let them decorate as dessert one night.

- Cut out a gingerbread or snowman shape out of paper and give the kids glue sticks, poms, gems, and stickers to decorate.

- Make your own ornament. We used the foam stickers.

Things I'd like to do:

- Make your own ugly Christmas sweater. Get a cheap sweatshirt at Target or Walmart, some fabric glue, and get some felt pieces, cut out into shapes, and add googly eyes. You'll have to help them glue and they'll have to wait til they dry, and they probably wont last more than one or two wearings, but tis the season!

- Big head crafts. I don't know why, but my kids love anything that has a cut out of their faces on it. Sunday school did a craft last week where they made angels that was SO CUTE. It was a triangle that the kids fingerpainted yellow (for the body), on the back of which they taped half a paper doily (for wings), stapled the kid's head to the body, and then glued little gold pipe cleaner halos on top. My son also did a placemat for Thanksgiving with his head that was a turkey and he thinks its the most hilarious thing. So I think I want to do one where they design their own gnome/elf with the pointy hat, but stick their faces on it. A snowman would be easy and fun too. I just need to print off some photos of their heads and cut them out.

I cut Christmas trees out of green construction paper and DS painted them white. It was a huge hit.