Christmas gifts that 3yo can make

[Munzle]

I'd like DD to make some gifts for some people for Christmas. I think she'd really enjoy it and I like the sentiment behind making rather than buying, but I am very un-crafty. Does anyone has any tried-and-tested ideas? Thought about baking biscuits but you have to do that too close to Xmas when I will be running around like a headless turkey, so something she could start soon?

I'm assuming your child is preschoolor reception? When I was little we used to make calenders (sp?) to hang on the wall. Get a piece of A4 size cardboard and some cutout shapes or pictures and let your child glue them onto the top half of the cardboard (or he/she could draw/scribble a picture. then buy one of those mini calenders from the pound shop and stick it or staple it onto the bottom half of the carboard. Make a hole at the top and put a ribbon through it to hang it up. Granny will love it, especially if he/she writes his name on it as well.

My DS and I made a printed tea towel at a craft session at our local children's centre when he was 3yo. We used fabric paint on a blank white tea towel. When ironed the paint was fixed so that it could actually be used as a tea towel.

The design was drawn on to a sort of polystyrene tile with a bluntish pencil (being careful not to push too hard as don't want to go all the way through the tile). We did a mug, where I drew the outline of the mug and he drew squiggles on it to decorate it. Then we dabbed fabric paint on the design with a bit of washing up sponge and pressed it down hard on to the tea towel. It was pressed down with a roller (could use rolling pin?). Did 8 repeats of the same design on the tea towel using a different colour each time.

This took all of DS's attention span to do, although I was also wrangling crawling DD at the same time, but it was messy enough to keep him interested without being so messy that it had me screaming. The end result was v effective and Granny was v pleased with it.

How about salt dough decorations? Use cookie cutters to cut out the dough (don't forget to pierce a hole in them at this stage), stick in the microwave for a bit, then get them to paint them and when dry, spray some varnish on them.

Also, if you are on Pinterest there are loads of hand print crafts you can make- using hand prints to look like a reindeer, christmas trees, wreaths, etc. These make good Christmas cards.

We made fridge magnets by painting wooden clothes pegs and sticking some of that magnetic malarky on the back. Bought some wooden shapes to stick on the front (they were people or animal shapes) which DD decorated beautifully. Well maybe not beautifully but they were quite effective and vaguely functional

Hi i have 6yr and 3yrs.. this year we are doing tea towels with fabric pens, and fudge (going in little tin buckets which will be decorated).

In the past we have done:

Calenders - usually put a photo of them in the middle and then get them to decorate around it.

Photo frames - In ikea you can buy 3 6 x 4 wooden photo frames for a pound. I painted these white with normal kids paint then the dc decorated with paint pens and stickers.

Mugs you buy ceramic pens and decorate.

Coasters made from hama beads.

We never buy gifts from the children to family it's always made by them instead. Def start early and do a few at a time! We also make christmas cards for everyone (one design for everyone per year! we do it like a production line!)

In your library see if they have some of the usbourne books like this:

(www.usborne.com/catalogue/catalogue.aspx?cat=1&area=cb&subcat=CAB&id=4657)

if they don't have them in your library they can get them from others in your county (free on a childs ticket)