My parents don't really want us to buy them Christmas gifts - they actually try to reduce the amount of stuff they have (my grandmother is in the same situation). So each year their favorite gift to receive from us is a photo book of a year's worth of photos of my kids and a little hand-crafted item.
In the past the kids have made ribbon bookmarks, felted wool coasters (a disaster, but loving grandparents still use them!), a couple different ornaments (paper tube snowflakes, snowmen made out of painted beer bottle caps), little sheep ornaments made of fluffy yarn balls.
I'm STUCK this year trying to think of something! I'd love to be able to think of a useful item like the bookmark again, but my mind is blank. Do any of you mamas have suggestions? The kids are 9 and 11, so they can do fairly hard crafts.
Thanks!!!
Forgot to add that the grandparents are 1500 miles away, so it's definitely something that we have to mail and the coupons for time unfortunately don't work :(
How about some bird seed ornament things. You can hang them outside, or inside, and they are consumable.
Best,
F. B.
You could have them write and illustrate a story or a nice card, or perhaps write about a favorite memory with the Grandparents.
Or, you could purchase blank mugs and permanent paint markers (I know you can get both at Target) and have them decorate the mugs. I have seen cute ones on Etsy you could use for inspiration or they could draw a picture of them with Grandparents or a nice message.
Or you could bake a treat or some bread together and package it up nicely.
We are making homemade soap. They sell kits.
We are doing bottle cap magnets. KIds are going to pick pictures and use a 1" circle cutter and then glue the pictures to bottle caps we have flattened. Easy and cheap and will definitely be used.
1 - Votive candles holders made of baby food jars, torn up tissue paper glue-washed on the outside - either pretty colors (jewel tones look good) or a snowman - white tissue paper, google eyes, tiny pieces of black felt to make buttons, a red ribbon around the jar "screw threads". then put a little candle in each.
2 - Handprint art - add a poem inbetween 2 little paint handprints, add name & year, frame. THe poem below is on a framed set of my daughter's prints but if you google handprint poems there are about a zillion others
Here my handprints are done
For everyone to view
I had so much fun
Doing this for you.
So look upon this handprint plaque
Hanging on your wall,
And memories will come back
Of me when I was small."
3 - paper plate wreath - cut the circle out of hte middle of the paperplate then glue cotton balls or pom-poms to the circle. Once dry loop a peice of chunky red or green yarn or ribbon though it with a big bow to hang
4 - A retro favorite - anything with pasta shaped glued to it and spray painted. picture frames, cans, smooth rocks, paper plate wreath...
5 - styrooam cone, ball or wreath with gumdrops pinned ot it using straight pins. It can be tough on the fingers so a thimble helps
6 - clear glass ornament balls - you can push a piece of glitter or a bow into it, then glue a ribbon around it and you're done.
Mostly - just have fun!
Pintetest has lots of great ideas. Magnets might be fun, sharpie cups or plates that are decoractive. Maybe go by a craft store with your kids and look around or get a kit of some kind. A painting on canvas, you can tape a word and then paint and then remove tape. Handprint paintings might be fun or decorating dish towels. A wreath for the frobt door. There are some cute snowmen ones using three different sizes of wrearhs. Have fun crafting!
We made little matchbox mangers one year with the clay that you bake to permanent hardness. The kids painted a blue sky with stars and earth as a backdrop, then shaped the manger scene and glued it in once it was baked. If you are not interested in something Christmasy, any sort of scene can go inside a match box. Takes up almost no space, and my inlaws still take it out at Christmas every year.
We like to do ornaments of all kinds (fill the ball with glitter, paint wood ones, etc.). My DD also made my mom a foam picture craft because my mom likes owls and I saw an owl kit. DD took the shapes and made it her own way.
If you get them some knitting looms (and some yarn), they can knit the folks scarves, slippers, socks, hats, mittens/hand warmers, etc.
http://store.knitting-warehouse.com/notions-knitting-mach...
Ornament for the tree, you can do glitter or a picuture.
Alos they can craft, Tikcets for them.. Like This ticket is good for 1 movie with Grandma/grandpa. Or for a foot rub, or I will make you dinner.. Things the kids can do for the grandparents. Dust, clean, time spent with them.
Cause really, picture books, and time is all that they can not buy forthemselves.. anything else they want they can buy. It is the stuff that can not be replaced, that they treasure.
Merry Christmas!
Someone already mentioned decorating white ceramic mugs with sharpies. I'm just going to elaborate on that one. It was all over pinterest for a while.
We got a white ceramic platter at Christmas Tree Shops after visiting my parents in FL last year and I divided the platter part up into 8 sections and we made it a little "visual diary" of our trip. A picture and a list for what we did each day. It was a huge hit.
You could do something like that with your children writing/drawing about special memories with their grandparents.
If you do try this, a word of advice. We had no luck with regular Sharpies. The stuff just washed off. We had to get the oil-based paint Sharpies, but those worked really well.
