Cheap Christmas Crafts for Children Part I
As I stated in the first craft post most kid crafts annoy me. I have three problems with them:
- They are butt ass expensive to do or at least beyond the cost of my ideal kid craft.
- Way to difficult for children.
- Useless craft. It just sits there and looks pretty. I’m not a knickknack person. Knickknacks lead to shit everywhere in your house that serve no other purpose than to “look cute” and gather dust.
I am a logical and efficient use of time and money sort of person therefore when I look for crafts for my kids to do they have to meet the following qualifications:
- Cheap.
- Adult assistance needs to be minimal. Afterall it’s a kid craft not a mommy craft.
- Not a piece of crap knickknack. It has to serve a purpose and an extra bonus if eventually it’ll need to be thrown away b/c it’s use will not longer warrant keeping it. This means it will not gather dust in my house.
Three crafts we’ve done this holiday season are:
- Dough Ornaments
- Seasonal Scented Playdough
- Count Down til Christmas Chain
Seasonal Scented Playdough
Basic Recipe
- 1 cup flour
- 1 cup water
- 1/4 cup salt
- 2 tsp. cream of tartar
- 1 Tbls. vegetable oil
- Scents using essential oils or spices
- Food coloring
For all of these ingredients I do buy the cheapest stuff at the store. Stir in a pot over stove on medium heat until a ball forms. Remove dough ball from heat and let cool a few minutes until it is cool enough to handle. Knead dough a little to be sure all is incorporated.
I’m ghetto and cheap so I store them in plastic baggies but crafty people will do cool things like this and even give them as gifts.
Scents we made
- Latte (I used daddy’s old coffee instead of the water and added no food coloring. The coffee itself was enough)
- Pumpkin Spice (I used pumpkin pie spice. Added a little orange dye)
- Vanilla (added vanilla extract and blue dye)
- Christmas Tree (added a Christmas essential oil I had and dyed the dough green)
- Candy Cane (peppermint oil. Dyed red and swirled white play dough with it.)
- Gingerbread (added cinnamon, ginger, and vanilla until it smelled like gingerbread)
- Cranberry (boiled cranberries with water like I was going to make cranberry sauce and strained off the liquid in place of water. It dyed itself. I’m sure cranberry juice reduced or a concentrate would work too.
Tomorrow is Part 3: Count Down til Christmas Chain
