Have you made Christmas cards with your children? How early did you start? Any tips for a novice?

[Tobermory]

thinking of making Xmas cards with DD, though as she will be only 18mo in December it's going to be very much mummy led!
When do I need to start? How long is it likely to take?
I'm sure I read somewhere about making reindeer with footprints- please tell me how!
Any tips?

You could get a load of craft stuff for her to stick on herself. So you could put the glue on the card and it would be ready for her to decorate.

reindeer instructions

People thinking about Christmas in August bring on depression!

I usually make christmas cards around nov with the DC[4,2 and 19mths]
We have made snowmen from cotton wool
Reindeer from handprints [just brown paint hand print then put on a red bobble nose and googley eyes]

abbeya, after posting did think I should have pit a 'sorry' in the title! Was inspired by the Xmas deals thread. I need to start thinking early to have any chance of actually getting it done!

no harm in starting early!

GO AWAY

GO AWAY IT IS FECKING AUGUST

'When do I need to start?'

oh god you have left it too late, it is doomed

Oh ignore the scrooges

Bring on christmas.

at cappucino full of the Christmas spirit already!

After asking for instructions last year i did the reindeer one with ds. We did the reindeer hand and foot onto a4 paper, and did a few attempts to get the best picture. I scanned it into the pc, shrunk it down and added googly eyes and a big red nose in publisher. Used a publisher template to make a 2 fold card that could be printed onto a4 then folded up to a6 size. I added a pic of ds to the back of the card etc. It looked really good and everyone thought it was lovely and nobody minded that they all got the same cards for christmas :-)

when dd1 was teeny i just gave her sheets of paper and festively-coloured paints/glitter/sparkles and let her get on with it, then i cut those bits out and stuck them on cards. i have the child labour out in force every year and you mustn't overestimate their stamina. if you have 30+ cards to do individually you can't count on them doing more than 2 or 3 at a sitting before getting bored. if you start pressuring them to "just do one more sweetheart" through gritted teeth you can be in for a rough time all round.

just letting them make one BIG mess that you then cut into teeny bits (festive shapes if you like) seems to be a smarter idea, cos then you don't control them and make it a trial for everyone. e.g. getting kids to realise the convention is that the picture goes on the front of the card takes years to instill.

stop when one of you isn't having fun any more.

It is August. Yesterday was "book to see FC at Harrods" on 2 different threads. Today it is Christmas cards. Will it be Christmas cake or pudding tommorow?

you can make nice christmas tree ones by just cutting a simple christmas tree shape out of green paper, sticking in on a card, cover it in glue and let dd go crazy chucking sparkly stuff like sequins and beads on! Go for it, its never too early!