Over Christmas break, everyone can get a little bored if it’s too cold to go outside for long. To battle the boredom, here are some fun holiday crafts! Have fun!
Wreaths are a traditional decoration around Christmas time. Below are two examples of kinds of wreaths.
Traditional Wreath
This is a traditional winter wreath, made of evergreens. You can use cuttings from a pine tree, or you can buy fake greenery from a craft store (be advised that the latter is the boring route) (it’s much more fun to wander the woods and cut off bits of pine trees).
For this wreath, all you need is two wire coat hangers and a bunch of assorted greenery. First, you take the coat hangers and bend them into circles, then tape them together, making a single reinforced circle. This is handy because it means you already have a way to hang your wreath, since the coat hangers have hooks at the top.
Once you have your coat hanger base, you can start building the wreath. Tape your greenery onto the base by wrapping tape (floral tape if you have it) around the stem. Continue putting greenery around the wreath, overlapping the stems to hide the tape. Overlapping will also make your wreath more substantial and prettier.
When the entire wreath is covered, you’re done! You now have a simple wreath of greenery. If you want to glue on ornaments, birds, ribbon, fake snow, or anything else, now is the time. When you’re done, hang your wreath on the door and high five yourself for being so Crafty™.
Gumdrop Wreath
This wreath is admittedly kind of silly, because it’s wasting candy, but who really likes gumdrops anyway? Also, the wreath is pretty.
To make it, you need a foam wreath form and a LOT of gumdrops or gumdrop-shaped candy. One tutorial I saw recommended almost five pounds of gumdrops to make sure you have enough.
The process is pretty simple- you just hot-glue the gumdrops onto the wreath in rows, then hang it up with a ribbon (a sturdy ribbon, bear in mind this wreath has five pounds of gumdrops on it). If you want to put it outside, you could try to weatherproof it by spraying it with a clear spray paint.
An alternate way to make this wreath is to use frosting as a glue so that the wreath is edible, but this may cause some gumdrops to fall off.
Another fun craft is making your own Christmas tree decorations. This is a fun, unique DIY for an angel ornament… MADE OF PASTA!!!!
For this craft, all you need is pasta, glue, spray paint if you want, a large wooden bead, and a piece of wire or yarn for a hanger. Some pasta shapes that would be helpful are rigatoni (large pasta tubes), bowties, and small shapes (for hair), macaroni (for arms).
Use a rigatoni for the body, and glue the bead on top for a head. Glue a bowtie to the angel’s back for wings. Make arms out of macaroni. Tiny circular pasta can be glued on the angel’s head for hair, or you can just make a halo out of wire. Voila! You’re done. Hang your tiny angel somewhere and tell everyone you made it yourself.
Pro tip: in order for this craft to work, it’s best not to cook the pasta.
Have a fun, safe Christmas break everyone!