Christmas will be here before you know it! If you’re sentimental like me, you might be into handmade gifts for the special people in your life: grandparents, godparents, etc. I love having arts and crafts time with my kids, and there’s so many adorable handmade crafts you can do with your kids for gift giving.
Some of these are focused on the holiday spirit, but other ideas we’ve created can be gifted throughout the year for various holidays-Mother’s Day, birthdays, Halloween, St. Patrick’s Day…you name it, we’ve probably tried it!
Here’s some of our favorite handmade gifts (the ones that turned out cute)!
- Kid in a snow globe: This was one of my favorite gifts we gave! I made them into ornaments so that the recipients could hang them on their tree each year. Check out the directions for this adorable craft here!
- Coffee Filter Jellyfish: We actually ended up keeping these as decorations in our house because they turned out super cute! This was also a great activity for younger kids and they got a kick out of what they looked like. The hardest part for this one, though-waiting for the paint to dry! Check it out here.
- Mess Free Painting: Raise your hand if you have a kid who loves getting things messy?! *Every parents hand goes up*. Exactly why I love this craft. It is completely mess free but lets your child explore with colors and designs. The materials are limited for this one, so I’m sure you have the supplies in your house somewhere. For this craft you will need: washable paint, large Ziploc bags, painter’s tape, and card stock. Simply insert the card stock into the Ziploc bag, add some paint inside the Ziploc (let the kids choose the colors), tape the Ziploc bag to the table so that it is closed completely , and let your toddler mash that paint all over the paper! We even framed my son’s first mess-free artwork!
- Leprechaun Kids: I always love crafts that incorporate photos of your kids. Who would have thought a cute craft as a gift idea for St. Patrick’s Day? We gave this one to the grandparents and they loved it! Check it out here.
- Salt Dough Handprint Ornament: I can’t have a list like this and not have a salt dough craft on it. I feel like this is a staple for any baby-made craft for someone special. We have done these handprint ornaments with all of my kids. They’re (fairly) easy but the most sentimental gift from a new baby.
- Kids as Elf Craft: I used to do this one with my students way back when. I’ve yet to do this one with my own kids but they typically turn out adorable! You will need a printer for this craft as you’ll need to print out the design for the elf. I always printed my elves out on white paper so the kids could color them however they wanted. You’ll also need thumbtacks for this craft. I altered the directions a bit. Instead of gluing the arms and legs to the body, I used thumbtacks so they were all movable. I also put a picture of their own head on top of the head so it was like they were an elf. Here are the step-by-step directions for you!
- Nature Craft: This is a great idea for a summer craft and would make for an excellent gift. This craft is great because it requires your kids to get out in nature to find anything to use in their artwork (dandelions, flowers, leaves, branches, etc). You can get creative with the design of your nature art; we made flower vases and then I poked holes in the paper so they could stick their pieces of nature through the top, kind of making a vase of what they found. The directions here are for a nature butterfly craft, very similar to my flower vase.
- Popsicle Stick Snowflakes: There’s so much you can do with popsicle sticks! I’ve made a variety of crafts using this staple item, but my favorite was snowflakes. I let the kids color and decorate the sticks prior to me gluing them together, then they arranged how they thought their snowflake should be designed. I’m a big believer in letting kids create the work themselves with minimal help from parents, mostly because it is through designing and creating that they really learn!
- Valentine Bouquet: This is another great idea for toddlers. All you really need to do is shape the pipe cleaners as stems and cut out the hearts, then just let them go to town decorating them! I like gluing the final product down on construction paper so the recipient can frame it if they choose. Here’s a guide for this craft!
- Glass Ornaments: Whoever came up with the idea of clear glass ornaments is a genius! You can do so much with these bad boys! We have painted them, stuffed them with colored pom pom balls, put pictures inside them, etc. Such a fun and easy gift idea for toddlers to make, and they even sell the ornaments in a set of 8 or more so you only need to buy one package and there’s enough for 8 kids.
So that’s it! Some of our most-loved crafts that we have given as gifts throughout the last few years. There are a ton of other crafts we’ve done. Check out my Pinterest page for more ideas on kids’ crafts!
