When it comes to festive craft, homemade Christmas cards are a great option to make with the kids. Mine make them every year for grandparents and daddy; we always have fun getting crafty with the glitter, paint and pens, and their homemade creations are really treasured by the recipients.
With the big day so close, I think it’s a good idea to keep crafts as laid-back as possible, so I thought I’d share some of the tips I’ve picked up over the years for stress-free homemade cards.
Go with a simple design
I’ve learned the hard way that perfect, stylised ideas just don’t suit a craft session with kids. If it’s too complicated, fiddly, or needs a lot of adult supervision, it probably isn’t going to be fun – or successful! Stick to simple designs and effects; things like paper snowflakes or buttons glued onto card, or simple shapes like Christmas trees to decorate with glitter glue are good options.
Short on time? Turn a photo into a card
This is a great last-minute way to create a really personalised card. Find (or take) a Christmassy picture of the kids, print it out and mount it onto a card; you can then get the kids to write their own greeting on the front or inside. This is the picture we used a couple of years ago, it still gets a giggle!
Be prepared for mess
With glitter, glue and paint in the mix, things are probably going to get messy. Promise yourself you won’t get grumpy, and try to focus on how much fun everyone is having. You can also limit the chaos by covering the table before you start, and decanting things like stickers, glitter glue and sprinkles into pots or trays before you begin. It’s also worth explaining to the kids that they’ll be helping with the clean up at the end, so they know what to expect.
Stuck for inspiration? Go for handprints, footprints or fingerprints
These always work well, and are a lovely way to keep a record of your little ones as they grow. We made handprint reindeer last year, and apart from some adult cutting out, the kids were able to do all the work themselves.
Fingerprints are great for turning into little snowmen, fairy light strings, or reindeer – this is a tree decoration we made, but it would work brilliantly for a card too.
No time to check addresses? Use White Pages
If you’ve created some beautiful homemade Christmas cards, but don’t have time to check all your addresses are up to date, I’ve got a great solution. The White Pages address finder is a super-quick and easy way to check you’ve got the right address; you just type in the surname and the city where your contact last lived to get your search results. So you can make sure all those lovely homemade cards reach the right person this year without any of the hassle.
Step back and let them get creative
Easy to say, hard to do! But it just isn’t fun for kids when they spend most of a craft session watching the grown-ups do everything. By all means provide inspiration and be there to help with tricky bits like cutting out, but if you can generally take a back seat and let them do their thing, they’ll produce a truly personal card to be proud of.
Are you making your own homemade Christmas cards this year? Do share your tips and ideas for keeping it stress-free in the comments – and have fun!
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