by Rachelle de Bretagne

Created on: December 31, 2010   Last Updated: May 19, 2011

The winter period is an ideal time to introduce children to paper crafts. Stuck indoors during cold weather, the children may be bored, and giving them an interesting project to do that has a purpose is not only encouraged, but will get an enthusiastic response. With Christmas coming, there are many paper crafts which can be considered which are associated with Christmas. Once a child understands the purpose of the project, often they look forward to using the items they have made in the Christmas festivity time.

Creating name tags

Old Christmas cards come in very useful, for this project. The child can use their imagination to choose the areas of the card to cut to create tags. A pair of pinking shears gives the cards a great edge and even if these are not available, simply cutting out rectangles can look equally as nice. A hole punch to make a hole where the gift tag is to be fastened to the parcel is simple to do, and threading each of the gift cards with colorful thread so they can easily be attached to parcels makes them useful.

Making Christmas cards

Another useful item, even younger children can participate. There are many websites for coloring pictures which can be copied and then printed so that children can color in the cards. Add personal touches like glitter and snow, and each card made is as individual as the child who made it.

The construction element comes in the neat folding of paper cards and adding elements which make the design stand out as original. 3D effects can easily be added by sticking elements to the card which stand out. These can be images which have been cut out of old Christmas cards, and be as simple as a Christmas tree or a gift.

Christmas decorations

Nice Christmas decorations to make for young children are paper chains. Families can join together to produce chains to use for decoration. For older children, making snowflakes to put onto windows can be a great exercise. In fact printing out a picture of a snowflake, the child can fold paper and cut out all the intricate detail.

These can be sprayed with glitter or snow effects, and even hardened by using flour and water paste and leaving them to dry. Once they have dried, they can be sprayed with gold or silver, or even the color being used for the Christmas tree, and have little strings attached to use as Christmas tree decorations.

A creche

Making a creche introduces paper crafts to a child such as paper mache. This is a good craft to teach children since it involves very

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