Clearly Christmas: Se7en Gifts Kids Can Make For Their Siblings

Not my usual Tuesday crafty post – but my kids made such cool gifts for each other this Christmas that I just have to share. This has to be my last Christmas Post for this year!

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Let’s just explain the ground rules: They draw names from a hat. Only one gift to be made for each kids and by each kid. I for one cannot face 7×7 = 49 precious little bits of bark or stone tied up in layers of scrap paper. No, just one gift per kid! And this gift had to be made from materials we already had I was determined to get a bit of resourcefulness going! Not to mention it has to be a cool gift not just any old thing wrapped up!

I was pleasantly surprised at what they came up with – very thoughtful, appropriate and easily makable for their age. I was really worried that we would have se7en more pet rocks in our home – but they rose above! So here we go: Se7en Gifts…

  • Hood #1 made a bag for Hood #7:

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    He drew a picture and snipped it out X2, then we used fabric glue and popped it onto fabric and embellished a bit with fabric markers. Finally we sewed it together to make a bag. It is small and she can grab it and look for little surprises in it – thus satisfying the crave to unpack of an almost one-year old.

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  • Hood #2 made a cookie mix and a felty food pantry for Hood #5:

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    The cookie mix was just the dry ingredients of my regular cookie recipe. And he broke up a slab of chocolate into it and added some pretty sprinkles – he really kept his celebrity chef brother in mind.

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    Then he made him a little pizza box pantry and filled it with felt food.
    Some of the items, like the egg and bacon needed to be glued and we just used regular fabric glue.

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  • Hood #3 made a spy kit for Hood #2:

    We used this tutorial from folding trees and post-it-notes – aaahhh a girl after my own heart! This worked so well that we went on to make a bazillion for all our best friends!

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    And while we were at folding trees we spotted these bookmarks so we made some of them too. – Very manageable origami for a se7en year old.

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    For Hood #2 we printed a page of paper from the matrix (spy stuff and codes!) but mostly we used pretty paper that you can download by the heap from The Lovely LolyChops.

  • Hood #4 threaded a felt necklace for Hood #6:

    We got this idea from the Crafty Crow’s mini felt wreaths. He threaded the felt bits onto stretchy elastic. I thought he would get sick of threading – but no… He morphed his needle into a hungry crocodile that ate and ate until he was done!

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  • Hood #5 spent hours making doll house embellishments for Hood #3:

    From fabric scraps he cut little bath towels and carpets, a tablecloth and placemat. And then we went through a magazine and popped things that could be used as pictures, food for shelves and even a pile of magazines for the coffee table. We stuck these onto card with glue stick and cut them out.

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    But my favorites were the very cute books. He covered some fat corrugated cardboard in plane paper along the fold, to make book covers. Then stuck book cover pictures, from a catalogue, onto the plain paper. Snipped them out and we had a pile of little books for the bookshelves!

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  • Hood #6 made super hero masks for Hood #4:

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    I printed these super-hero masks from the Family Fun printable pages. These were perfect for the kid that lives in the world of wild pretend! I pinned the masks onto felt – so that they would be durable. Then cut out two of each color so that they could be double sided…

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    Then Hood #6 glued the two pieces of felt together with fabric glue. Finally, I stitched round each mask and included elastic between the layers. Somehow card masks never last but these are going really strong – they have even been slept in!

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  • Hood #7 made a magical wand for Hood #1

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    Actually Hood # 7 abdicated all responsibility – I tell you the youth of today! So I made a magical wand on her behalf. I wanted it to be a real wand, not just a straw with a star on top – anyway I found what I was looking for at Instructables – of course! Which in turn led me to this awesome website Dadcando for older kids crafts – not just popsicle sticks and loo rolls thank-you very much! You can pay for the pleasure of this sight but there are whole heaps of it that are free – go and explore – it’s great!

    I painted a blank piece of paper with cold glue and then rolled it up and left it to dry. When it was dry I twisted and twirled it under a got glue gun… then painted it. Then glittered it with glitter glue so that little flakes of glitter are not flowing all over the house!

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Clearly these are not specifically Christmas Gifts and can be used anytime anywhere, I like that they are made from things we had lying around and they are being played with – which means not just flimsy well intentioned gifts – but real and robust!

Have Fun!

18 Replies to “Clearly Christmas: Se7en Gifts Kids Can Make For Their Siblings”

  1. Your children’s gifts are beautiful and I think it is a wonderful idea. My two girls liked it so much they want to make New Year’s gifts for each other, since it is too late for Christmas! Thanks for sharing with us!

  2. Hay Jack – Glad your girls liked it – go for it! We had such fun on this one and definitely the most loved and lingering gifts!

  3. Hi K, thanks for commenting… I think the limit for me wasn’t so much the cost, but the thought of 49 gifts roaming our house that really stressed me out!!! Felt food is a lovely craft for kids and there is a great range from easy to hard!!! Love the cute cookies! Have a great week!

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