It's Beginning to look a lot like Christmas: 9 Christmas Craft Kits for Kiddos!

Crafts are great. I'm blessed with a crafty brain and I enjoy doing them on my own as well with my boys. I'm also the planner/organizer/leader of our Wednesday night 3-6 year old Bible study group and I include a craft or two each week. I also do lots of crafts with my boys. Toward the end of this month, we'll start doing Christmas crafts. I come up with a lot of ideas on my own, but I found some ready to go craft kids on Amazon that I'd love to share with y'all. 

We'll start off with the Melissa and Doug Mess Free Glitter Ornament Kit. It comes with 7 glitter foam sheets to make 6 foam ornaments. Each ornament also has a string for hanging. The glitter is mess-free glitter though... it looks and feels like glitter, but it doesn't get all over your table, your house, your car, EVERYWHERE.

The concept seems simple enough: Just peel away a section of white paper from the six foam Christmas-themed ornaments to reveal the sticky surface, then select which of the seven different-colored glitter sheets to press on for instant sparkling art. Attach the included satin ribbons to hang glittering ornaments on the tree or anywhere! It's got a 4.5 out of 5 star rating after over 70 reviews, so I think this one is worth a try! Melissa and Doug suggests this craft is for ages 5 and up, but I think if you have a younger child with decent dexterity, they could do this with a little bit of help. 

Up next, we have a Button Wreath Craft Kit. It looks like this one is just a kit with buttons, pipe cleaner, and string to make 12 wreath ornaments. All of the sets are individually packaged, so it would make a good kit for a Sunday School or other group with several kiddos. After nearly 60 reviews, this kit has a rating of 3.7 stars. The bows do not have a way to be attached, so you do have to supply some sort of glue. Other reviewers recommend using hot glue for this.

Reviews also say that the wreaths are very small and cheap looking. I'm thinking this one may be more of a skip, or maybe I'll just get my own supplies to do this on a larger scale with my boys. It would make a good craft for the 3-6 year olds I work with, but I think I will just buy my own buttons, pipecleaners, and ribbon for that. 

We've bought several Alex Toys craft kits in the past, and they've all been well worth it. Here's one that makes paper ornaments. You can create 6 festive holiday orbs to hang from trees, from chandeliers or anywhere! The set includes 40 paper strips, 475 mosaic tiles and gems, 6 ribbons (10in./25.4cm.), 6 plastic stems, 12 plastic knobs and easy instructions.

The reviews are all over the place, some people absolutely loving them, and others saying they were either way too easy or way too hard for their kids. They recommend this craft for kids ages 6 an over, but if your kid has really good fine motor skills, younger kiddos might be able to do this. I think my boys would get a kick out of doing this craft and yes, they're made of paper, but I think they'd make really cute presents to give their grandparents. I think I'm going to give this one a try! 

Up next, we have a super cute Reindeer Antler kit. The kit makes 4 antler pairs and contains 4 Paper Headbands and 38 Paper Add-ons. The kit does NOT include glue and all of the pieces are paper and not foam. I do like that all of the pieces are pre cut, but it is not good that it does not include the glue and is only flimsy paper. I think this is another skip one since I can do it DIY with my own foam and stickers. It IS super cute though. 

Here's another foam craft kit, this time for stockings. This kit makes 12 snowman out of adhesive foam shapes. It seems pretty self explanatory and pretty easy, so it might be a good one for younger kids or for kids with less than ideal fine motor skills. I think I'm going to put this one in the maybe pile since the price seems a little high for what it is. 

ADORABLE! I can hardly stand the cuteness of this foam reindeer kit. It includes materials to make 12 reindeer. Each reindeer is individually packaged, which is a lifesaver for larger groups of kids. I am incredibly disappointed though because the reviews make it seem like there's no glue in the kit and the foam pieces are not adhesive. And this kit is probably worth about $5 or $6, and when I was writing this, it was about double that, so I'll have to pass on this one unless the price comes down because it is SOOOO CUTE! The boys could make all of Santa's reindeer and I could attach them to a string and hang it over the fireplace. LOVE! 

Here's another Melissa and Doug Christmas Craft Kit. This one is a stained glass ornament kit. It's extremely well rated after almost 150 reviews, too! Kids create beautiful "stained glass" ornaments with this fun and easy peel-and-press sticker craft! The lead-look frames and realistic textured stickers make stunning results! Grooves and outlines on the frame make it easy to fit each sticker--featuring realistic textures like bubbles or swirls--into just the right spot!

Over 50 "stained glass" stickers included, plus ornament frames, ready-to-hang cords, and suction cups. The kit makes only 2 ornaments, but I think this craft could still make a great afternoon activity. The recommended age is 4-8 years, but again, if you have a younger child with decent dexterity, I think they could handle the sticker part with help. I'm liking these, but I think my boys are a little on the too young side for them since the stickers have to fit into the grooves. Once they're older though, this is RIGHT up their alley. 

I found another Alex Toys christmas craft that looks like a lot of fun to do: paper chains. This kit has 400 pre cut, double sided, super colorful paper strips and a chunky glue stick. I love making paper chains, but I sure hate cutting out the strips, so the fact that this is pre cut is FANTASTIC! The 400 strips make over 75 feet of paper chain, which is quite a bit.

There's no way my boys would finish this in one sitting, but I do think they could handle making it since all you do is join the edges together in a loop with the glue. When I make these, I usually use tape or staples since it holds better than glue does. It's recommended for kids 3 and up, and I think that's a pretty good suggestion. I might actually get this for our church group and divide the 400 strips into much smaller sets for each kiddo to work on. Even if we have 10 kids that night, each kid could do 40 strips, and that's probably still way too many for the younger ones in my group. I really like this one. I think I'm going to go ahead and purchase this one. We can work on it throughout the month. 

Finally, I have this really cute beaded candy cane on the list. The kit has enough pipe cleaners and beads to make 16 candy canes. It's rated very well at over 4.5 stars after over 30 ratings. I actually recently bought the tri beads and the pipecleaners to do this on my own, and really, I think that I probably spent about as much as the kit is, so it might be worth it to go the premade kit route! I am doing these one night after Thanksgiving in our church group. I'm also having them do pipe cleaner/tri bead wreaths. 

Well, I think that wraps up my list! I have lots of other crafts planned for November and December, but sometimes, it's really nice to just have all the supplies show up at my door. 

Are you a crafty person? Do you do crafts with your kids?