Making Christmas crafts for toddlers is a great way to spend some fun time with your toddler and create memories that you can treasure for the rest of your life. These activities will keep them busy and creative.
Make sure they always wear old clothes when doing these crafts, and cover surfaces appropriately to avoid messes.
These Great ideas for Christmas crafts for toddlers age 2- 3 year old, they are simple to do, easy to organize, and not time intensive.
Most of these Christmas craft ideas won’t take more than 15 to 20 minutes start to finish. I hope you have fun with them.
Christmas Craft for toddlers age 2- 3
1. Sparkly Snowflake Ornament Craft
One of the great things about Christmas is that everything just sparkles making this our number 1 Christmas craft for toddlers age 2- 3. It’s such a cute and fun craft for kids, mostly because it’s so sparkly.
Materials Needed
- Green and red jumbo craft sticks (four craft sticks per snowflake)
- Red and Green craft jewels
- Glitter glue in Christmas colors (red, green, gold, silver)
- craft glue
- Hot glue gun
- Ribbon
How to Create the Snowflake Ornaments
1. Make the snowflakes ahead of time. Make an ‘X’ with two craft sticks and glue them together with the hot glue gun. Then use the hot glue gun to attach the vertical and horizontal craft sticks. It should only take a few minutes to assemble three or four snowflakes. You could also use craft glue to make the snowflakes, but it would take more time to dry completely before you get to decorate the snowflakes and make them sparkly.
2. Set out the craft jewels and glitter glue and let your kids decorate the snowflakes for themselves. If you have younger children, you might want to provide a little more guidance:
- Try to encourage them to not squeeze the entire glitter glue tube in the same spot… while that might look pretty to your 3-year old, it will take forever to dry.
- Glitter glue will work to stick on jewels, but you can also dot the craft stick with craft glue, which will likely work better.
3. Let your snowflakes dry. This could take a little while depending on how thickly the glitter glue was applied. Sweet Pea really laid it on thick and it took 2 days for everything to dry… but it did happen eventually. Ha!
4. Once the snowflakes are dry, cut a 5-6″ length of ribbon, fold it in half and attach it to the back of the snowflake with hot glue in order to make it hang-able. Tip: In order to prevent the ornament from tipping too much, squeeze a 2-3″ line of hot glue on the back of the vertically aligned craft stick and press the ends of the ribbon up the length of the hot glue line.
2. Pom Pom Candy Cane Craft
Candy canes are one of the sweetest things about Christmas (pun intended). Of course, many kids who indulge in this minty treat end up with sticky fingers and a sugar high. Well, I can’t promise you won’t get sticky fingers (not too sticky though), but this adorable candy cane Christmas craft for kids won’t rot your teeth. Read on to see how easy and fun these candy canes are to create.
Materials Needed
- Red pom poms, various sizes are fine
- White pom poms, various sizes are fine
- Cardboard sheet
- Sharpie or black marker
- Scissors
- Craft glue
- Red ribbon (or any type of festive ribbon)
How to Create the Candy Cane
1. Draw the candy cane onto the piece of cardboard. As you draw the lines for the red and white sections of the candy cane, label each section R & W alternately. This will help guide even young children in how to recognize letters, colors, and patterns.
2. Cut the candy cane out of the cardboard.
3. Put the red and white pom poms in two separate bowls.
4. Working with your child, squeeze glue onto one section at a time and then let them stick on the pom poms. You might want to help, not because they will need it. Only, that kids seem to think crafts are more fun when Mom or Dad do it with them.
5. Work your way up the candy cane until each section is filled with pom poms and the candy cane… looks like a candy cane.
3. Candy Cane Bead Craft
The third Christmas Craft for Toddlers age 2-3 is the candy cane beaded ornament, perfect for younger kids and really easy to make.
This ornament is really so simple that even a young 2-year old could have a blast making it with you.
What you will need:
- Red or White pipe cleaners (or chenille stems)
- White and red tri beads (or pony beads if you prefer)
- Scissors or wire cutters
How to make the beaded candy cane ornament
1. Twist two same-colored pipe cleaners together and offset them so there’s about 2 inches of just one hanging off of each end.
2. Place a bead (the same color as your pipe cleaner) halfway onto the one the two-inch end and fold the outside inch in, so the ends meet.
3. String beads on the pipe cleaner in a red/white pattern (I did 17 alternating color sets of 3 – so 51 beads in total).
4. Once you have it to your desired length, cut one of the two pipe cleaners right at the end of the last bead and trim the second pipe cleaner to about half an inch past the last bead.
5. Then wrap the excess around the pipe cleaner between the last and second-to-the-last beads tightly.
6. Curl the pipe cleaner into a candy cane shape and you’re done!
4. Winter Cork Paint Tree
Who would have thought corks would make such a fun paint brush? This Winter Tree Cork Painting Craft For Kids would be a fun and simple craft to do on a snow day!
Materials Needed:
- 8×10 blank canvas
- Acrylic Paint in the following colors: dark blue (navy blue would work fine), white, and brown (we used dark brown, but a lighter shade of brown could present a better contrast with the dark blue).
- Foam paintbrushes; 3 (for the tree, background, and snow)
- 1 cork for the white snow.
- 1 paper plate
How to Make the Winter Tree Cork Painting Craft!
- The painting for this craft has to be done in three phases so that each part of the craft dries. You can save time by painting the first stage the night before. However, we did this craft in an afternoon, leaving about 1 hour between phases. Anyway, paint the background first. There is really no right or wrong way to paint the background. I painted straight lines of blue paint. My daughter decided to paint the sky swirly. Note: In the photo below we used a roller. I would not suggest that. In our other cork painting crafts we used a foam paintbrush and it worked much better.
- Next up is the tree and snow on the ground. Again, this is pretty simple. The only thing you need to do is paint numerous branches. For the snow, you can just swirl white paint in little circles or paint a snow drift that covers the tree too (which is what my daughter did). Let the canvas dry. Note: If you decide to make the snow cover the tree (that is what my daughter did), paint the tree first and let it dry before painting the snow on the ground.
- Squirt a small amount of each color acrylic paint onto a paper plate (or another paint palette). I used a paper plate only because it was available and cheap.
- Stick one cork into the white paint squirt and set up the paint palette next to the canvas.
- Don smocks and have fun!
- It’s nice to paint the tree and snow some white flakes falling from the tree too. It is totally up to you!
5. Easy Cinnamon Ornaments
I love that these ornaments are made with applesauce! This is the perfect craft/recipe combo to do with your kids this holiday season!
Your kids will love getting in the kitchen with you to make these sweet ornaments for your tree. You can use different Christmas cookie cutters to make different shapes and you can even use different types of craft ribbon for even more variety.
And the smell… hmmmm, the aroma of cinnamon baking in the oven will perfume your entire house and create such a cozy, family holiday vibe. No wonder cinnamon ornaments are such a popular craft/recipe to make for Christmas!
What will you need?
- ¾ cup applesauce
- 1 ¼ cup ground cinnamon
- Waxed paper
- Cookie cutters (these are perfect!)
- Straw or bamboo skewer
- Ribbon for hanging (this is a great selection of ribbon!)
How to Make these Easy Cinnamon Ornaments!
1. Preheat oven to 200 degrees.
2. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.
3. In a bowl, mix together applesauce and cinnamon to form a clay-like dough.
4. Roll out dough between sheets of waxed paper to about ½ inch thick.
5. Cut out shapes using cookie cutters.
6. Using a straw or bamboo skewer, create a hole for hanging the ornament.
7. Transfer ornaments to baking sheet. Bake for 2 ½ hours. Remove from oven and place ornaments in a cooling rack.
8. Allow ornaments to dry on the cooling rack for 24 to 48 hours, turning occasionally.
9. Add a ribbon to ornaments for hanging or to attach to packages.
6. Clear Filled Snowman Ornament
This snowman ornament craft for kids is really super cute and easy to make. It uses clear plastic ornaments and a few fun flourishes.
Christmas ornaments in particular are a family favorite because once the ornaments are made, they become treasured family heirlooms for year to come.
Christmas ornaments don’t have to be complicated to be cute either. This snowman ornament craft is perfect because it is super easy to create, fast, and so incredibly adorable!
What will you need?
- Clear plastic or glass ball ornaments
- Orange acrylic paint
- Black acrylic paint
- Cotton swab
- Red and green chenille stems
- Red and green pom poms
- Glue (Used: Hot glue)
- White foam snow pebbles
- Funnel
How do you make the snowman ornament?
1. Remove the cap from each ornament. Using a funnel, fill the clear ornament full with snow pebbles. Replace the cap.
2. Wrap chenille stems around the cap of the ornament to create a loose spiral. Remove the chenille stems and set aside. Creating this spiral helps create a neater wrap around the ornament.
3. Using glue, attach the chenille stems in circular rows beginning at the cap of the ornament and covering about 1/4 of the ornament with the chenille stems.
4. To one side, attach a pom pom with glue. (Tip: Choose an area where the chenille stems do not look their best to hide the imperfections.)
5. Once the hat is completely set, use a cotton swab to dab circles of black paint for the eyes and mouth and orange for the nose. Allow to dry completely before hanging.
Christmas Crafts that are Perfect for a 2-year Old!
These are great ideas too! Check them out for festive fun this season!
- http://www.powerfulmothering.com/easy-christmas-crafts-for-kids-craft-stick-stars/ (Powerful Mothering)
- http://adventuresinwunderland.com/christmas-mason-jar-luminaries/ (Adventures in Wunderland)
- http://www.housingaforest.com/shredded-paper-snowman/ (Housing a Forest)
- http://mollymoocrafts.com/homemade-christmas-cards-2/ (Molly Moo Crafts)
- http://www.blogmemom.com/christmas-crafts-for-kids-christmas-wreath/ (Blog Me Mom)
I hope you have a blast trying out these crafts with your toddler or 2-year old. If you like what you see, check out the awesome blogs I got the ideas from. Each of these bloggers have excellent ideas!