Christmas Craft without the Mess!

Want to join in with Christmas Craft but don’t want the mess of all that paint, glitter and glue? We are lucky in that we have laminate flooring so it is easy to clean up any mess, but don’t think I would be so patient with a carpet. It may not even be about the mess, cleaning it up can be quite time-consuming and there’s not a lot of that in the run up to Christmas. Here are some ideas for getting crafty at Christmas without the mess.

Stencils

Why not use stamps and stencils (or even Festive hole punches) to make a lovely Christmas picture and/or card.

Colouring Pictures

You can buy colouring in books from a variety of places, or you can print pages from the internet. Colouring-in is fantastic for practising fine motor skills, hand-eye co-ordination, precision – and in my house sharing (why do they always want the same colour at once?!). Then of course there’s a variety of tools for colouring in with – crayons, pencil crayons, felt tips – all of which can be picked up cheaply. There is also the option of colour-by-numbers – therefore helping with their numeracy skills too.

Some pictures even can be made into decorations by cutting them out and folding over tabs (source)

Paper Folding

You can fold paper to make different shapes (origami) what about something like this  Christmas tree from Five Go Blogging made from a yellow pages, and MummyBarrow from a magazine.

Stickers

How about using stickers as an alternative – for example using coloured stars (to make it festive) to fill in a picture – again very good for fine motor development. Or again you can do (a big) colour by numbers and use different coloured stickers to fill it in. Or what about using sticky-backed gems?

If you did fancy getting a little messy you can make your own pictures to stick such as in this example by Cheesy sausages

Tape

You could use tape as an alternative to glue for many of the crafts you see, alternatively why not make a picture using Christmas tape.

You can either copy a picture or print one out and have the children tape over the top. Here is my reindeer (original idea from stylizimoblog)

Find more Washi Tape Craft ideas at RedTedArt

Sweets

You may have a lot of sweets leftover from Halloween, or you may buy them for Christmas – there’s quite a few fun mess-less ways to turn them into Christmas creations.

Or why not use the craft as a way to wrap them in a more unusual way – like these chocolates that I turned into a Snowman.

Paper Plates

Paper plates can be really versatile – you can use them to make masks, or Wreaths and other Christmas Crafts by drawing on and cutting them.

Snowflakes

Okay so you will have a bit of mess with the cut up bits of paper, but in the grand scheme of things it isn’t that great and will not stick to everything at least.

Threading

This is great to help develop fine motor skills. The mess will mainly be rogue beads rolling away. You could make Wreaths for example (see RedTedArt) or make threading cards – where you make holes for your Christmas design and then thread it through.Or how about Christmas Bead ornaments like these from HereComeTheGirls.

Playdough

I don’t see this is as a very messy product and you can even make your own, giving it some gorgeous Christmassy smells and colours. The possibilities for Playdough are endless – creating scenes, building snowmen, trees – and why not add some cardboard to help your scene,  or collect some things from nature outside.

Why not try this recipe for Christmas playdough over on Learning4kids

Pipe Cleaners

Pipe cleaners are as mess free as craft comes. Why not try something simple like our star

Glue Sticks

I like glue sticks – as they are not that messy at all. Then you can simply get your child to glue on objects (feathers, bits of foil, more stickers, pasta, scraps of paper) to a cardboard (old cereal box) cut out shape (something Christmasssy – a star, a tree, an angel).

Afterwards, simply make a hole at the top, thread through the hole and you have a Christmas ornament.

Toilet Roll holders

If you are willing to give glue sticks a go then why not some stick coloured paper to toilet roll holders – why not give our TRH Angel a try? (check out our other Christmas TRH craft here)

Lego

Lego is pretty mess free – and there’s some great plans to follow on the internet to help with your creations like at Our Forever House .

Advent ideas

ActuallyMummy does not like messy craft so you should check out her blog. Her latest offering is these lovely advent calendar cups

And for more easy to do activities at home see Mummy Mummy Mum’s – Easy Christmas Activities to do at home.