Simple Family Christmas Craft Projects
Too busy to spend a lot of time on Christmas crafts with your family? Well, you’re in luck, because the Internet is a great source of free images that can be used to make easy Christmas craft projects. For example, crafts made from vintage Christmas cards or vintage Christmas images found online are simple to make, due to the fact that vintage images are versatile and also quite effective when it comes to delivering a holiday message. Because of their age, vintage images can also be downloaded and used without fear of copyright infringement. That’s a terrific bonus, because you don’t have to worry about using other people’s art illegally.
Just a simple Web search using the search term “vintage Christmas” will give you a huge number of free vintage images from which many craft projects can be made. And if you’re not a fan of vintage, contemporary Christmas clip art can also be used to produce beautiful projects.
Here are some examples of simple holiday projects virtually anyone can make by using free electronic images:
Holiday Gift Tags
There are actually free holiday gift tags available for download from the Internet but you can also make your own. Simply download the the image or images you like and insert them into a table in your word processing or other type of program. The table should have two columns and six or eight rows, depending on how long and thin you want the gift cards to be. Paste the art into every other cell if you want to fold them or in every cell if you don’t, making sure there’s enough room to write people’s names. Then, print the page onto card stock, cut the place cards using a paper cutter or a ruler and craft knife. You can also make holes for string or ribbon in the corners by using a hole punch.
Handmade Holiday Cards
Once you’ve gone online and downloaded the holiday image you would like to use, paste it into a word processing or PowerPoint document. You can make the card virtually whatever size you want using the software’s settings. Position the image on one half of the card, so it can be folded in half once it’s printed. Print the card on sturdy stock, fold it and use a little glitter glue to make it sparkle. You can also make your own envelopes or just get some at the dollar store.
“Gather ‘Round the Family” Christmas Wreath
Crafting Christmas wreath is easy and can even be made when your family gets together for Christmas dinner. Here are the supplies you’ll need to have on-hand:
- 1 plain Styrofoam wreath ring (your choice as far as size)
- Green construction paper, cut in the shape of holly leaves approximately four inches long
- Free Christmas clipart or vintage cards of your choice (between two and four inches long), printed and cut along the outlines
- Scissors
- Short straight pins
Have family members and guests write Christmas messages and the date on the holly leaves. Then, position them in a balanced way around the Styrofoam wreath and affix them with the straight pins. You might need to adjust the leaves to look good. The straight pins will make it easy to reposition the elements. (Just make sure to watch the little ones around the pins!) When you like the way the leaves look, pin clip art among the leaves. The result will be a custom wreath that reflects your family’s love every holiday season for a long time to come.
I hope you enjoy making these simple and fun holiday crafts and that you have a happy Christmas!
