Make Pipe cleaner Sparkly Spirals for your Christmas Tree: Fun for preschoolers

Everyone can make these fun, easy pipe cleaner spiral ornaments for your tree even preschoolers! 

It's beginning to look a lot like CHRISTMAS all around our house! There's a tree in the Liv-ing room... A Santa on the mantle... And the Snow is expected very soon. So, we made Christmas Tree Ornaments from Pipecleaners. Enjoy!

Easy pipecleaner craft - make holiday decorations.

I have a gorgeous 9' Tree that I bought one-hundred years ago when I was much younger and less wiser :-) Last year, it ended up on the floor several times due to toddlers or my blind cat who likes to climb it. This year we bought a Wal-mart Special. My grandmother always had a white tree. I remember thinking (even back then) maybe its a bit tacky.

Yesterday's tacky is today's classy?
Well, maybe not...
But I miss my grandma and her Tacky Tree.

White Christmas Tree with Lights.

I like it, I really like it! The kids love it. The downfall is lights are on green strands that scream out 'ugly' to me. I am sure I will spend the next few days trying to camouflage them as I discreetly re-hang the ornaments that the kid's spent the afternoon happily placing on the bottom of the tree.

It is very endearing with my Sesame Street Carolers hanging from the lower branches as it sits on a table in hope to avoid the blind cat. The new kitten isn't as easily fooled. He keeps batting a Big Bird. We suspect he might have sprayed it too.  I'm glad he approves.

So, you ask, what's the craft, lady? It is unbelievably SIMPLE. On my last trip  to the Dollar store to purchase UNBREAKABLE ornaments, I found sparkly, green pipe cleaners.

I speculated braiding them into mini-wreaths or garlands. The sparkly green looks nice with the white tree. After we put the tree up those green wires me. I contemplated covering them with garland or ribbons while I distractedly wrapped a pipe cleaner around my finger. Of course, you can wrap them around a pencil too.

Wrap a pipe cleaner around your finger to make a spiral.

My son wanted the cool, slinky-like spiral. So, I bent one end into a hanger shape and he placed them on the tree-  faster than I could make them.

Pipe Cleaner Christmas Ornament Spirals.

They don't break! If Mr. Tigger bats them down, c'est la vie, they probably cost a penny a piece. The perfect, artsy-adornment for my tacky tree... Tacky Ornaments. Cute! Fun! Spirals!

My favorite art form - perhaps even my trademark. Choose lots of primary colors for green trees.

Recommended Reading:

Christmas Ornaments Stained Glass Coloring Book (Dover Stained Glass Coloring Book)*

Christmas Games

Things to Make and Do for Christmas (Usborne Activities)*









ADS DISCLOSURE: We've partnered with some wonderful advertisers who may sponsor blog posts or send us samples to test. Some companies pay us to review their products.

*We also use affiliate links, if you make a purchase we get a tiny commission. Kids Creative Chaos participates in the Amazon LLC Associates Program*, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a mean for blogs to earn advertising fees by linking to Amazon properties, including, but not limited to, amazon.com, endless.com, myhabit.com, smallparts.com, or amazonwireless.com. We also offer Tapinfluence, Google Adsense, SoFab, and Izea ads here. Thanks so much for helping us keep the lights on! :)

Diy Christmas Gift Bag Ideas

Make Christmas Gift Bags at Home

These gift bags are the perfect things to make at home. Purchase plain bags at deep discount and then do these DIY Christmas Gift Bag Ideas to personalize them for friends and family. Whether you decorate with a Christmas Tree, Santa Claus, Reindeer, Elf, Gingerbread Man or even a Star of David for Hanukkah, these bags are sure to get a smile. Enjoy!

Diy Christmas Gift Bag Ideas to make at home.

DIY Santa Gift Bag Decoration.

For this Santa Claus gift bag, we used an oversize gift tag, sticky stars, and cotton balls. Total Cost is under 25 cents! We bought the tags and bags in bulk.

Gingerbread Man Craft Decoration for a DIY Gift Bag.

This Gingerbread Man is a foam form that came in a pack of 100 different holiday characters. We added glitter glue, mini pom poms, and sticky stars.

DIY Reindeer Gift Bag Idea Craft.

Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer is a cardboard cut out. We bought them in packs of 50 at Michael's. They make great traceable patterns for kids. The tree below is traced from the Christmas Tree pack. We added glitter glue, sticky stars, and mini pom poms.

Christmas Tree Gift Bag Craft Idea.

Trace a Christmas Tree on felt and cut it out, add some glitter glue and sticky starts and then pop on some cottonball snow to make this gift bag decoration.

Recommended:

Christmas Ribbon for Crafts*

Fun Crafts to Make at Home

Make a Cardboard Gingerbread House

Christmas Tree Cards





ADS DISCLOSURE: We've partnered with some wonderful advertisers who may sponsor blog posts or send us samples to test. Some companies pay us to review their products. *We also use affiliate links, if you make a purchase we get a tiny commission. Kids Creative Chaos participates in the Amazon LLC Associates Program*, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a mean for blogs to earn advertising fees by linking to Amazon properties, including, but not limited to, amazon.com, endless.com, myhabit.com, smallparts.com, or amazonwireless.com. We also offer Tapinfluence, Google Adsense, SoFab, and Izea ads here. Thanks so much for helping us keep the lights on! :)

Easy Christmas Tree Decoration : Kids Popsicle Stick Christmas Crafts

Easy Popsicle Christmas Tree Decoration: Kids Christmas Crafts

Get Crafting! Use popsicle sticks to make these easy puppets or fridge magnets. Make several holiday shapes, and glue them to popsicle sticks. Have the kids design their own stage with an old shoe box and use these as mini-puppets. Go ahead and glue the magnet to the back. The fridge make's the perfect storage keeper to organize all your kids craft projects. Enjoy!

Christmas Tree Puppet or  Magnet or Pin.

Cool craft for preschool kids.

  Materials:

  Popsicle Stick

  Old Advertiser Fridge Magnets, Cut up or pin back 

  (Michael's or JoAnn's)

  Felt

  Pipe Cleaners

  Hot Glue

  Earring Stickers or Sequins for decorations

 Kids can play on the fridge too. Color a scene on a piece of construction paper. Attach it to the fridge, and move the "puppets" around the scene. Now, that is a fun holiday project for kids!

Recommended Reading:

Snowmen

Bridges: Amazing Structures to Design, Build & Test (Kaleidoscope Kids)*

Indians and Turkeys

Loew Cornell 1021254 Woodsies Craft Sticks, 1000-Piece*

Santa and Reindeer

ADS DISCLOSURE: We've partnered with some wonderful advertisers who may sponsor blog posts or send us samples to test. Some companies pay us to review their products.

*We also use affiliate links, if you make a purchase we get a tiny commission. Kids Creative Chaos participates in the Amazon LLC Associates Program*, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a mean for blogs to earn advertising fees by linking to Amazon properties, including, but not limited to, amazon.com, endless.com, myhabit.com, smallparts.com, or amazonwireless.com. We also offer Tapinfluence, Google Adsense, SoFab, and Izea ads here. Thanks so much for helping us keep the lights on! :)

13 Easy Eatable Edible Christmas Craft Activities for Kids

Fun, Easy, Eatable, Edible, Christmas Art and Craft Activities for Kids

We love any kind of eatable, edible art. It's the best after school snack activity for kids. You get to make it, have fun, and eat it too! These 13 easy, seasonal, holiday snack craft activities for Christmas are sure to get your kids in a happy mood. Enjoy!

This post contains Affiliate Links.

13 Easy Eatable Edible Christmas Craft Activities for Kids.

• From Disney Family Fun, these edible sugar plum gum drop penguins are perfect for the scene around your gingerbread house.

Candy Gum Drop Penguins = Edible Art.

• From Family Fun Crafts edible candy cane reindeer are fun to make and fun to eat too. The heads are made from chocolate covered marshmallows.

Reindeer Marshmallow Pops = Things to do with marshmallows.

• Busy Bee's Marshmallow Snowman Sippers are simple to make. Just slide the marshmallows over a straw and decorate with black icing.

Marshmallow Snowman Sippers.

• Edible Crafts shared these adorable and easy to make powdered doughnut snowmen. In our after school program, we used candy corn for the noses and candy dots for the facial features.

Powdered Doughnut Snowman = Edible Craft.

• Edible Stained Glass Ornaments from Kaboose  (no longer exists) are delicious to eat and double as cool Christmas tree decorations. Click the link to go to our recipe for stained glass cookies!

Stained Glass Cookie Ornaments.

• We found these edible cinnamon cookie ornaments at Completely Delicious. There are also non-edible versions which smell wonderful and last for years. Just don't eat them!

• Christmas Yule Log Roll is the perfect Christmas Eve dessert. Make some hot cocoa, start a fire, and slice up your Yule Log Chocolate Cake! We've got the recipe!

How to make an edible Christmas Yule Log Roll Cake.

Edible Cinnamon Scented Cookie Ornament.

• Make an edible sleigh from candy canes like this one from One Hundred Dollars a Month. Keep scrolling to see our similar version with edible passengers!

Edible sleigh from candy canes from One Hundered Dollars a Month.

Make a Cardboard Gingerbread House.

• Waffle Cone Christmas Trees are perfect for landscaping outside your Gingerbread house. Covered in green icing and fun candy, they are also delicious! We found these at She Knows.

Waffle Cone Christmas Trees from She Knows.

• These sugared marshmallow snowmen are also from She Knows. Candy Rollos make cute little hats!

Sugared Marshmallow Snowman from She Knows.

• This snowman in a jar is one of our all time most popular posts. This one is filled with fiber fill, but you can fill it with mini-marshmallows, chocolate candy, and candy corn to make an easy, edible craft for preschoolers.

Snowman in a jar: We filled this with cotton batting, 
but you could use popcorn, marshmallows, or vanilla fudge.

• Stick a small candy cane through the edible marshmallow gingerbread man seen below, and hang him on the Christmas Tree.

Edible Chocolate Marshmallow Gingerbread Man.

• Pop some popcorn, add some waffle cone Christmas trees, a candy cane sleigh, peanut marshmallow snowmen and penguins, and you have the outdoor area at your Gingerbread Land.

The scene outside a Gingerbread House.

• This little peanut is a snowman. To make an edible version, paint with white icing and decorate with gel icing.

This Peanut Marshmallow is a Lapel Pin, but you can 
make and edible version for your Candy Cane Sleigh.

Recommended Reading:

Get Edible Holiday Snack Crafts and Games on Amazon.

Turkey Peanut Butter Balls

More Things to do with Marshmallows from Amazon.

Book: Christmas Made Easy: Recipes, Tips and Edible Gifts for a Stress-Free Holiday

Mayflower Cream Cheese Boats

Easy Preschool Holiday Craft: Recycle Business Cards into Ornaments

Easy Preschool Holiday Craft: Recycle Business Cards and Popsicle Sticks into Santa and Reindeer Holiday Ornament Decorations

Think of the possibilities! These can be refrigerator magnets, tree ornaments, or bookmarks. Recycle business cards or use small squares of cardboard to make holiday decorations and ornaments for your Christmas tree.  Contact a local businesses - many companies have boxes of business cards from employees who have left or perhaps a phone number has changed. Don't let these go to waste!  Enjoy!

Reindeer and Santa popsicle stick craft.

Reindeer paper and popsicle stick craft for toddlers.

Make your own playing cards

Perhaps a game of  'Hearts' or 'Old Maid'. Cut photos from magazines or draw your own. We used business cards, paint, glue, glitter, popsicle sticks, and construction paper.

Step 1

Paint your business card.

Pink for Santa's face, brown for a reindeer. 

Step 2  

Take 5 or 6 sticks of the same color. If you're using plain, recycled, popsicle sticks - don't forget to paint them.

Step 3

Place the sticks as pictured on your business card and glue them in place. Elmer's school glue worked perfectly.

Santa Popsicle Craft for Kids.

Step 4 Cut out Santa's hat and trimmings. Draw his face.

Step 5
Add a magnet from a recycled calendar or business card logo-magnet and glue it to the back or glue a ribbon to the top back to hang on your tree. Add glue, dump on the glitter, shake it off, and when it dries you have a sparkly tree ornament! HAPPY RECYCLING!

Popsicle Stick Santa Craft.

Recommended Reading:


Christmas Crafts For Kids: 50 Step-By-Step Decorations And Gift Ideas For Festive Fun

Christmas Ornaments to Make: 101 Sparkling Holiday Trims (Better Homes and Gardens)

The Best list of Christmas Party Games Ever!

8 Best Christmas Holiday Games for Parties for Adults and Kids

8 Activities for Christmas Parties

Looking for Holiday or Christmas Party Games for your Office or School Event? These are some of the 8 BEST EVER holiday GAMES for Parties. Even Santas like to play holiday games and do fun Christmas activities when they get together... And eat. They also like to eat. Scroll down for more of the best holiday games. Enjoy!

This post contains affiliate links for your convenience.

Here are some more of the best CHRISTMAS games ever! You can play them in a Banquet Hall, outside in warm weather, (or cold if you like) and in your living room.  

We were busy planning a fundraiser for Santa's Elves of Indy, when we partnered with Oriental Trading Company to help raise money to purchase Christmas gifts for local families. Chick-fil-a of Avon, Indiana was kind enough to donate a banquet tray to help feed our volunteers and the Santas. 

Before the big day, we practiced by playing many silly games like Elf Bowling and Soccer. We used some of the games on this list of Christmas party games to play with the kids .  

We like games that can translate to preschool, elementary, teens, and adults with little tweaks and variations. If you enjoyed our post "Have the best Christmas party ever," you'll like this one as well.

Christmas and Holiday Games for Office Parties or Family Get-togethers.

Fun Games for Holiday Parties

• Group Scavenger Hunt 

Divide into teams: Team Rudolph, Team Dasher, Team Frosty, Team Elf- you get the idea. 

Make a list of things to find and return to Santa (you) to win the game. Look for things around the office, school, house, where ever you hold you hunt and make a list, check it twice, and then print out a copy for each team. Teams can be of 2-6 players.

• Christmas Ornament Bowling

Need a fun ice breaker or silly game to get great Instagram shots 

or You Tube videos? Try ornament bowling! To set up th 

game: Use rolls of wrapping paper. Unroll them to form each 

"bowling" lane.  Use miniature Christmas Trees or Decorative 

Santa Figures as the bowling pins. These Christmas decorations 

are the perfect theme for this holiday party game.

• Icebreaker Game for a Party

How about this Sticky Note guessing game: Who am I?

Write one holiday thing or decoration word on each sticky note. Choose words like: Snowman, Christmas Tree, Santa Claus, Sleigh, Rudolph, Menorah, Danny Kaye, Elf on a Shelf, Bing Crosby, or Yukon Cornelius, even movie titles.

Players go from party guests and ask one question. The answer must be a yes or no answers. "Am I alive?" "Do I wear a red hat?"
Play continues until each player solves the mystery of "Who am I?"

Instead of sticky notes or paper taped to people's backs, try writing names on Dollar Store Santa Hats with Glitter Pens. Guest can keep them as party favors!

Fun hats make for silly games and fun pictures with kids and adults!

• Santa Belly Limbo? Office Party

Add a Holiday or Christmas twist to a fun icebreaker game for the office. Have each player describe two of the worst Christmas gifts they ever received. Make sure one is true and one is a lie. Now, have another player guess which one is true! This is a fun way to get to know co-workers.

• Candy Canes Game

Have you ever played the game spoons? Try using candy canes instead! The kids will like this game. Winner eats all!

How to Play Spoons

• Fill the Stocking Race

Find the largest Christmas stockings you can (I found mine at Dollar Tree). Fill it with empty wrapped boxes. Have players race to unwrap them all. The first one done wins! 

Play the race to wrap game first, and then you won't have to do any upfront prep! See, what I did there? Yeah, my lazy meter is always on guard.

• Hot Christmas Potato Game for Adults

Each guests bring one wrapped item from a Dollar Store. $1 limit! Play hot potato to Holiday Music. When the music stops everyone unwraps the gift, and shares what they got with the crowd.

• Snowball Contest

You need baskets of new socks in all sizes. Each team rolls their basket of socks into "snow balls".  When all of the socks are rolled into balls let the snowball fight begin. 

Use a table or chair with a white table cloth to serve as each team's home base hideout. 

You can also make a snowman, and use his belly button as a bull's eye. The team with the most bull's eyes wins!


I sure hope you have the best Christmas office party ever with these fun holiday games!  Happy Holidays :)  from KCC

Recommended Reading:

Holiday Games and Recipes for Parties

Games for Youth

Melissa and Doug Christmas Box Of Questions Game

How to Make Salt Dough Recipe: Self-Portrait Ornaments

How to make Salt Dough Self-portraits as Ornaments

Did you ever wonder how to make salt dough? We made self portraits for a homeschool art project. I included how to make homemade clay and a few salt dough recipes. These mini-mes are a great companion project for a preschool or kindergarten learning body parts lesson. You can also make Christmas Tree Ornaments from Salt Dough. We played around with a variety of themes during our homeschool art lesson. Enjoy!

This post contains affiliate links for your convenience.*

Salt Dough Holiday Ornament Recipe.

Make a Halloween Tree with Homemade Dough Ornaments.

Self portraits from homemade clay and salt dough.

Make Christmas and Holiday ornaments by inserting straw to form a hole.

This recipe is for  how to make clay without cream of tar tar.

Salt Dough Recipe:

1 C. flour

1 C. salt

1/2 C. water

Mix together and knead.

When ready to cook, put on a baking sheet in 

oven at 100 degrees C/ 200 F for 2-3 hours.


Cooking is not necessary, leave your creations 

in a safe place to dry. We left these in a table drawer

and forgot about them.


When cool, paint or decorate with beads or candy.

Salt dough cookie faces.

You might also like how to make Homemade Clay with cream of tar tar.

Info on the History of Clay

We made these self-portraits about four years ago and forgot about them. They've sat in the end drawer of our dining room table ever since. They were never cooked nor painted.

Jake was about four years old and he hadn't met his elementary art teacher yet, but he still had an aversion to art. It was a sensory issue. He didn't like getting his hands dirty. He also worried about getting things on his clothes. If either of these happened, he would get very upset. I suppose this is where my love  of messy crafts was born.

I liked to be tidy as a small child too. I didn't play like the other kids on the playground, because I didn't want to ruin my leotards (today we call them tights) or get grass stains on my clothes. These things troubled me a great deal. So, I'd walk around the perimeter of the playground until the teacher blew the whistle. Little did I know, it was OCD. I've recovered, but some people don't appreciate it. The only way for me to stay sane is to embrace messy things. 

Yep, I didn't want Jake to struggle with the same wacky demons, so I encouraged sensory play.

Even now, he wants to hurry and complete the project so he can wash his hands. If we are mixing dough, he can't let it dry. You know, that crumbly, crackly feeling  on your hands? Mayhem and I like it. It's fun to let the dough dry and then scrape it off similar to letting school glue dry on your hands. I like seeing the fingerprints in the glue peelings. 

Jake? No way. I think this has a lot to do with his hatred of art, and then the teacher came along and made art a boring chore. 

He strives for self-inflicted perfection. He doesn't like the learning curve. He knows a lot. He is a gifted child. When he has to learn something new he is disappointed he didn't already know it. You can see the shame and the disappointment in his face. 

Recently, he had to take a Scantron test online, the test was smart. The more correct answers, the harder the questions. We told him to guess, but he refused. He labored over each question and made a very educated guess. In the end, he scored above average, but the test was torture. He cried with each question  for the first time aware he didn't have all the answers. 

Jake beginning his journey in art.

If only he could realize art works the same way, but it's better because there are no real answers in art. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. I am the beholder here. I like his salt dough self-portrait the wavy hair and round face remind me so much of my happy, bouncy, little four year old.

Next week's journey, Animal Printmaking, proved very difficult for a neat freak. Smudges are a perfectionist's nemesis. Start here for Jake's Journey in Art 


Recommended Reading:

Air Dry Clay Projects

Minecraft Creeper Wood Carving Project

Christmas Dough Crafts

Salt Dough: More than 100 Projects! (American Girl Library)