The easiest Christmas crafts use what is already in your kitchen and recycling bin: paper snowflakes, a paper chain, salt dough ornaments made from flour, salt and water, dried orange slices and pinecones from the yard. Here are 15 ideas with the ages they suit, what each one needs and how to make it.
Updated by the Frugal Santa elves
Paper snowflakes, paper chains, salt dough ornaments, dried orange slices and pinecone ornaments are the five most families can start tonight, because none of them needs a trip to the craft store. The list below adds ten more, all made from paper, pantry staples, cardboard or things from the yard.
Fold a square into a triangle, fold it in thirds, snip notches along the edges and open it up. Tape them to a window.
Mix 1 cup flour, 1/2 cup salt and 1/2 cup water, roll it out, cut shapes, poke a hole and bake low until hard.
Slice oranges thin, dry them in a 200°F oven for about 3 hours and hang them on the tree or a string.
Make one link for every night until Christmas. Tear one off at bedtime and watch the chain get shorter.
Thread popped corn onto a long piece of thread. A grown-up handles the needle for younger kids. Birds can have it after Christmas.
Tie a loop of ribbon to the top, dab the tips with white paint for snow, and hang.
Wrap a tube in brown paper, draw a face, and cut antlers from paper or twigs.
Paint a child's hand green, press it upside down to make a tree, and add a star and the year.
Glue torn tissue paper onto a clean jar and put a battery tea light inside. Paint a snowman face if you like.
Lay five sticks in a star shape and tie each place where two cross. Hang one on the door.
Glue three or four sticks across each other at the middle, paint them white and add a loop of string.
A grown-up cuts a potato in half and carves a star. Dip it in paint and stamp plain brown paper.
Print a free Santa page, color it in and hang it on the fridge or send it in a card.
Match the craft to the hands doing it. Little ones like big, messy jobs; older kids like crafts with a real tool and a finished thing they can give away.
Put down newspaper or a flattened cardboard box first. It is free, and it saves the table.
Mix 1 cup flour, 1/2 cup salt and 1/2 cup water, then bake the shapes at 250°F for 2 to 3 hours until they are hard all the way through. That is the recipe Michigan State University Extension gives for families.
The dough is not food: it is far too salty to eat, so keep pets away from it.
Fold a square of paper in half into a triangle, fold that triangle into thirds so it looks like a cone, then cut notches along both edges and open it. Folding in thirds gives six points, like a real snowflake. Real ones have six sides because water freezes into a lattice of six-sided rings, as University at Buffalo chemist Jason Benedict explains. The astronomer Johannes Kepler wrote a whole essay on six-cornered snowflakes in 1611.
Make a square from printer paper by folding one corner down to the opposite edge and cutting off the strip. Thin paper cuts easier, so coffee filters work too. Cut more away than feels right; the biggest holes make the prettiest flakes. Tape them to a window, or hang them from the ceiling on thread.
Slice oranges about 1/4 inch thick, pat them dry and bake them on a rack at 200°F for about 3 hours, turning them every hour. That is the Farmers' Almanac method. They are done when the peel is dry and the middle looks like stained glass.
Thinner slices dry faster. If any still feel sticky, leave them in the switched-off oven overnight: slices with moisture left in them can mold. Thread them with twine for a garland, or tie one to a present with a cinnamon stick and a sprig of pine. Our wrapping guide has more ways to dress up plain paper.
Look in three places before you buy anything:
Brown paper bags, cut open and stamped with a potato star, make wrapping paper. Craft stores sell kits for most of these ideas, but the version from home is just as good on the tree.
Grown-ups get the most from crafts that end up on display or under the tree:
Several of these make good gifts, too: a set of ornaments in a box, or a garland rolled in tissue. Our homemade Christmas gifts page has more, and the DIY advent calendar page shows how to turn a crafting night into a countdown.
Kids love to show off a craft. On Frugal Santa, a grown-up can start a live video call with Santa in the browser, and a child can hold up a snowflake or ornament and tell him all about it. Santa is an AI video character who listens and answers out loud. $1 a minute, no app. Read how calling Santa works or start a call.
A paper chain. Cut strips of paper, loop each one through the last and tape it shut. Even a 3-year-old can do it, and it doubles as a countdown: tear off one link each night.
Handprint cards, a paper chain with an adult doing the tape, sticking pinecones in a bowl, and coloring pages. Pick crafts with big pieces and nothing small enough to swallow.
Years, if they are baked until completely hard and kept dry. Seal painted ones with a clear coat or glue mixed with a little water, and store them wrapped in paper.
Not if they are fully dry. Slices that still feel damp can mold, so leave them in the switched-off oven overnight or on a rack for a day before you hang them.
Paper snowflakes, a paper chain, gift tags cut from old cards, cardboard tube reindeer and potato stamp wrapping paper all use things most homes already have.
Live videoHold up your snowflake or ornament on a live video call and Santa will tell you what he thinks. A grown-up starts the call. $1 a minute.
Call Santa
Homemade Christmas gifts14 DIY gifts people use up or keep, and what to start first.
DIY advent calendar8 easy ways to make one and 24 free activities to fill it.
Santa coloring pages16 free pictures of Santa and the North Pole to print or save.
How to draw SantaAn easy Santa face in 10 steps, plus a full-body Santa in 8.