You will need
6 strips of paper in three colors
1 short strip
2 split pins or you can use a stapler
Scissors

Lay the strips in two sets of three.

Take the shorter strip and fold it in half – the intention of this folded bit is to create a loop for hanging the decoration. Place it on top of one of the sets of three strips with cut edges together.

Lay the second set of strips on the other side of the folded strip – again with cut edges together so the folded strip is sandwiched between them. Using the sharp point of the scissors, make a small hole through all the layers of paper and secure with the split pin, or staple them together.

Lay the strips on their edge on a table and pull around the outer strips to form a heart. Repeat with the other layers making each layer slightly bigger than the last. Secure with the split pin or staple.

Cut the edges near the split pins to a point to neaten them.

Tie a piece of string or ribbon to the centre loop to hang.

This is a great wee bowl that is easy to make and requires no glue, but just don’t try and serve ice-cream in it (or soup).

What you need
1 printer size sheet of light card
1 extra strip of card
Scissors
Hole punch

Cut the piece of card into five strips lengthways. Cut the extra strip of card in to three even lengths. Discard one.

Using the hole punch, punch a hole in both ends of each of the strips of card.

Roll each around a thin stick like a skewer.

Push the rolled card through one hole of each of five strips. Repeat with the other short piece of card.

Twist the strips so they spread out and create the shape of the bowl.

A crafty friend told me about the fun she had with this as a child and shared with me how to do it …

“This trick gave me endless entertainment when I was a child. Nearly every child at my school had their ‘cut off’ finger in a match box and even though we were all knew how the trick worked, there was still something pleasingly revolting about looking in the match box. ”

What you will need
1 empty match box
Scissors
Cotton wool
Red food coloring

Slide the box out of the cover and cut away the sections as shown.

Lay a piece of cotton wool (you could use a folded tissue instead) in the bottom of the box.

Dribble some red food coloring onto the cotton wool about half way down the length of the box. Slide the box back into the cover.

To play the trick, put you index finger into the hole in the bottom and practice holding the box with your thumb and middle finger so it looks natural. Tell your friends that you cut your finger off and ask them if they want to see it. Slide the box open and there your finger will lay looking lifeless on a blood soaked bed of cotton wool!

These pretty flowers are great for decorating lots of different things. They are of course great attached to a drinking straw and made into a gorgeous bouquet but you can also pop them onto greeting cards, wrapped gifts or attach to a twig.

Gather up some pretty paper like the one we made using crepe paper as a dye, a button, a pipe cleaner cut in half and a glue stick.

Fold the sheet of paper into a concertina.

Fold the length of concertina’d paper and cut the ends off on an angle. Push a length of pipe-cleaner through two holes in the button.

Wrap the pipe cleaner around the center of the folded paper. Twist to secure.

Using the glue stick, join the sides together to make a circle. If you find that the concertina is flattening out too much, cut the length of paper shorter.

Use the excess pipe-cleaner to secure the flower on to what you want.

Let your imagination run wild with this technique. You can make random patterns or mosaic pictures using this technique and it is lots of fun.

What you will need;
Crepe paper in different colors
Sheets of printer paper
Spray bottle of water
Tray

Lay a sheet of paper on the tray. Place the pieces of crepe paper in the pattern you wish.

Spray liberally with water. The more water you spray on the crepe paper the more intense the color transferred. Do not be afraid of getting the paper quite wet.

Lay another sheet of printer paper over the wet crepe paper and put another layer of crepe paper. Continue with as many layers as you wish making sure you spray water over each layer. It is a bit like making a lasagna and it means you will have paper dyed on both sides.

Press down to make sure the water penetrates and leave for 10 minutes. Remove layers and hang each sheet to dry.

This was supposed to be a Christmas craft but I was a bit late getting it ready – then I thought that you may have some extra magazines from holiday reading that need to be used, well this is the craft for that!

Use a magazine with a bound spine rather than a flimsy stapled one.

Open the magazine to the first page. Take the top right hand corner and bring it to the centre and fold. This should be tucked as far into the spine as possible.

Tuck the folded edge into the center spine and make another fold.

Fold the triangle section up so the fold lines up with the bottom edge of the page.

Fold the rest of the pages in the same way.

Carefully fold the front and back covers to match the rest and then glue them together.

This is a lovely wee tree that uses crepe paper twist chains to decorate it.

What you will need
1 US letter or A4 sheet of card
Crepe paper in the colour of your choice
Glue stick
Scissors
Pencil

Trace around a dinner plate and fold to make a half circle. Cut out with the scissors and fold over to create a cone shape. Glue to secure.

Cut a strip from the end of the folded crepe paper.

Unroll and using your thumb and forefinger, twist twice to secure. Repeat along the length of crepe paper using your thumb as a guide to get a uniform size.

Cover the cone shape with glue from the glue stick and then attach the crepe paper chain starting at the top of the tree and spiralling down. Repeat with the other colours of crepe paper.

This tree looks good as it is but you could add some glitter shapes, pompoms or whatever you fancy.

What you will need:
1x Empty toilet roll
Brown, black and white paint
Paint brush
1 x small glitter pom pom
2 x googly eyes
2 x black pipe-cleaners
Black marker
Scissors
Glue

What to do
Paint the outside of the toilet roll with the brown paint. Leave to dry.

Cut legs into the bottom of the toilet roll.

Paint on the hooves using the black paint. Leave to dry

Paint a white strip above the black hooves and leave to dry.

Using the point of the scissors, make a hole either side of the top of the toilet roll for the antlers. Make sure you take into account the position of the legs when making the holes.

Cut both pipe-cleaners in half. Thread one through each hole twisting it back on itself to secure.

Take the other half and wrap it around the middle of one of the antlers to secure in place. Bend the pipe-cleaners to make them look like crazy antlers.

Stick on the nose and then eyes. Draw on the mouth using the black marker.

This tree is painted on a large bit of hardboard we had in the shed, I have taped the edges to prevent splinters!

The dog under the tree is not a gift, she is to demonstrate how large the tree is. So there is plenty of room for lots of children to use the boxes of felts I will have handy, to cover this tree with decorations.

Well of course things did not go completely as planned – but not in a bad way! The weather was lovely, and the children were all far too busy to sit down and draw, so we only had a couple of ornaments drawn on the tree – but they are still very cool. This may turn into an annual tree decoration activity – where a few ornaments are drawn on each year. Which would be a lovely crafty addition to our family Christmas traditions.