A Homemade Yule - Part Four

Today, it's all about crafting with kids.  Or for kids.  Whichever.  I was inspired today by a post from The Wicked Stitchery, about the importance of crafting.  She has a fabulous Etsy store, too.  Check it out here.

What kind of kind of crafts can we make with our kids for Yule?  The list is pretty much endless.  When I was little, I always made garlands out of construction paper.  You know, the kind where you cut strips and tape them into loops around other loops?  These are a great starting point, especially for younger children.  Just cut the strips out beforehand and let them go wild with the tape.

Toilet paper roll Advent Calender

I also love the idea of making your own advent calender.  Brianna is still a little young, but we will be doing this in the coming years.  Given the current health trends in the country, I suggest something other than chocolate!  Buy those little clothes pins, you can get them from scrap-booking stores or craft stores.  Take some note paper, or blank cards.  Write the number of days on the outside of the card, depending on if you are doing for Yule or Christmas, etc.  On the inside, write a Yule activity that your kids can do or your family can do together.  Decorating their rooms, making cookies, making peanut butter pine cones for birds,  watch a holiday movie, make sugar snow, make maple syrup candy!  Whatever you can come up with, that you and your kids would like.  Fold the papers or cards together so the number is showing and use the clothespin to pin it to a string, and it's ready to use!  Another great idea is making an advent calender out of toilet paper tubes...who doesn't have those laying around everywhere?  Here is the link to that project from Woman's Day.

Another great idea would be to let the kids make cards to give their friends!  If you are someone (like me, *ahem*) who saves every Yule and Christmas card, this is a great thing.  Just cut the images out of the old cards, and let your children mix and match them to make their own!  You can buy blank note cards from any craft store.  I like these ones from Paper Direct.

Make a Graham Cracker house.  Just like a gingerbread house, only with less ingredients going to waste because no one eats them anyway.  You can buy royal icing from the bakery department of your grocery store starting the first week of December, in most places.  Then just head to the candy aisle and stock up!!  There is no wrong way to do this.  For easy clean-up, news papers should be spread in all directions for several feet under the crafting area.  I remember how messy I was when I made these, years ago.

For a family craft, I love this Yule Log idea from Pagandad.com.  The use of a hot glue gun is great.  Most Yule Log crafts you see want you to use a drill. 

I hope that I've been able to give you some new ideas.  Doing the same thing year after year can get a little boring.

Here are the links to my previous Homemade Yule posts!

A Homemade Yule - Part One
A Homemade Yule - Part Two
A Homemade Yule - Part Three

Goddess Bless,

S.