Simple ideas for school Christmas fair

[Ringadinga]

Every year our school (like most) has a fair. Each school house has a stall for raising money for a charity and then external stalls also come in .
We have been told this year no sweets are allowed to be sold on the house stalls. We have the local toy shop with a stand and a couple of local bakeries also have them so don't want to tread on toes of local business. I need ideas that are good pocket money and not too tricky to make .
So far I have made some small air dry clay gonks and some wreath baubles from snippets of felt. Another person is making a few dog bandanas.
Any other craft ideas any one has would be hugely appreciated!

I'm a teacher and have had great success making these santa tee decs with the children themselves.

Popular stalls at out fayre are usually craft based: decorate your own xmas biscuit, make your own bauble, face paint, tattoos, etc. Or games stalls are another popular choice; (lgames are all made and run by the children and usually involve throwing something at/into the target to win a prize.

You could pick up a Christmas cuddly toy/ Gonk and do a guess the name activity, which are usually popular, too.

Thanks. We do have a game planned and face paints. Another house are doing tattoos so won't touch that. Those log decs might work.

One that my son loved at the school fair at Christmas was a lot of donated gifts, variety of prices (50p to maybe £3) and then the children came and chose presents for family and they were wrapped in donated paper.

He always really though about the gift even though they were cheap, I loved getting them

Kind of hate them but jolly jars seem to go down well. Tombola maybe as well as any Christmas decoration where the kids basically buy there design from class or at the day.

'Reindeer food' seems to sell well at our school fete, just don't put glitter in it, it's basically oats and seeds that can be sprinkled outside for birds to eat, bagged up into little cones or paper bags and tied with a ribbon.

No sweets allowed by school stalls as parents have been complaining that kids basically buy 5 jolly jars and get hyped up on sugar!
Reindeer food went well but another house do them, the same as hot chocolate sachets looking like reindeer. I'm trying to not spend too much of my own money if at all possible, teacher salary and all that! Parents also run a stall of donated items. It's so tricky trying to make as much money as possible for charity, and provide cheap variety and interest. Urgh

A few more cheap and easy craft ideas:

£15 vouchers that can be cashed in to stop the ptfa bothering you for money for the next 6 months.

Have a look at Baker Ross - they have loads of cheap Christmassy crafts which work out at pennies when you buy in bulk.

www.bakerross.co.uk/christmas-tree-wooden-decorations?nosto_source=cmp&nosto=1480038629

Bulk buy Christmas stickers then separate them into sheets and wrap them in cellophane.

Would absolutely buy one of these. Or a voucher to go on an account for all the discos/movie nights/non uniform days I forget about!

Love the voucher idea! 😂
And thanks for the link, I'll go have a look now.

Homemade dog toys. They are surprisingly easy to make and make great toys, plus they can be sold for a decent amount as people actually want them.

https://createlaughgrow.com/home/2017/6/26/how-to-make-a-square-knot-dog-toy-thats-really-square

You can buy fleece cheaply online and then get Christmas colours or if there is an ikea nearby their cheap fleece blankets are great value and work well. https://www.ikea.com/gb/en/p/thorgun-throw-light-blue-40513461/#content

My DD's school did this - I can't remember what they called it but it was genius.
You ask for donated items and then charge a quid per gift and the children choose something and help to gift wrap it. You buy in some gift wrap and bobbins to make it look festive.

We're doing this at my dds school this year - called 'Elfridges'

Salt dough reindeer Xmas decs (upside down gingerbread man)

Hot choc spoons (wooden spoon or candycane, melted choc with a touch of mint or cinnamon etc, sprinkle of marshmallows put in ice cube tray to set then wrap in cellophane)

Christmas craft set ( hessian trianglewith red pompon, two googly eyes, two mini pegs to represent antlers and you have a reindeer face)

Fruit kebabs Xmas colours - red green and white (sprinkle with edible glitter)

Play dough pouches - santa (red, white, black and skin colour) reindeer (brown, black and red) snowman - white, brown, black and orange)

Hair scrunches, really easy to make even by hand. If your school has old uniform that's stained or damaged you could always use that fabric.

Do you do secondhand uniform sales? I know it's not massively xmassy but it will be popular around Xmas time because in my experience that's when they decide to outgrow the still old stuff you got them at the beginning of the school year and the very littles have ruined all their white shirts with whiteboard marker. You'd need to do a fair bit of organising to gather up and sort all the uniform but it always sells very quickly at our school, the PTA do stalls summer and Xmas fete and then in between they do them after school a couple of times a year from the hall.

Could you make little cones of reindeer food ( oats) and sell those??

School has second hand shop open all year, money goes back to the school, this is for individual house stalls raising charity money at this fair. I'm a play dough wizard so love that idea, have just bought some cheap airtight tubs and will do a Christmas set, I have some soap essential oils that are Xmas based smells.

Might mention scrunchies to the lady doing dog bandanas as they should be easy enough.

Thanks, feeling less panic stricken about the no sweets rule now!

Could you get some embroidery thread and get the kids to make friendship bands? Or chop some threads to length, pop in a safety pin and some instructions and sell them as friendship band kits (tutorials available on YouTube if you need help with instructions, or there must be printable instructions/different patterns available too).

Could you ask people to donate old Christmas jumpers and sell them?

Tombola?

Could you make bathbombs? Or perhaps get cheap bathbomb advent calendar in home bargain, remove the packaging and sell the bathbombs individually?

A surprisingly effective idea I saw was personalised baubles.

Get a load of plain medium size coloured baubles, and gold and silver permanent markers. Doodle a few spirals or polka dots on the baubles, leaving space for a name in the middle. Personalise by writing name on when bauble is bought. These go down so well and are very simple to do and also a nice display can be made if you make something to hang them on (one of those twiggy decorative tabletop trees for example, with a battery set of fairy lights around it), or if not you could do a noticeboard with tinsel around it and pin the baubles by their thread hangers onto that.

So quick and easy to do. Kids loved them and they could be sold quite inexpensively and still made a good profit.

Hairbands made out of old t shirts. Basically get people to donate old t shirts. Cut into strips and pull them (the sdges curl in on themselves). CHoose 3 colours and plait together. Join ends to make a stretchy hairband. Tutorial for a more elaborate adult version here https://www.instructables.com/Braided-Headband-from-Recycled-T-shirt/ but 3 stands is fine for children. Like this https://asthebunnyhops.com/tutorial-braided-t-shirt-headband/