I decided recently that this Christmas season I really want to put the focus on simple kid-made / homemade crafts and decorations. With a little one in the family who is climbing everything and always looking for mischief and an older preschooler who is really coming into his own as a little artist, it just makes sense to foster his creativity and avoid more of the breakable, dangerous decorations. Plus it’s a pretty frugal way to be as festive as we like.

So we’re planning to put up our tree this weekend, but apart from the fact that it’s prelit, I’m planning to leave it largely undecorated and make paper ornaments and garland with the kids to decorate it over the month and do some crafting of my own if I find time to.

Today we got the ball rolling by making  this construction paper Christmas Tree which is now hanging on our balcony door underneath MM’s portrait of our Elf Friend Godwin and a beautiful paper snowflake that we got in the mail from his auntie.

Hole-Punch Paper Christmas Tree

Making this was pretty easy, though a bit tedious. I used a medicine cup to trace circles on a piece of green construction paper then cut out all of those circles with an additional sheet of green paper and two sheets of yellow behind it to save a little time, but it still sort of felt like it was taking forever.

I also made some circles with red tissue paper which went much faster as I folded the paper until it was a small square about the size of the circles and then cut all at once which took a little bit of strength but saved a lot of time.

Next I used a hole punch and punched away at all the little green circles. I recommend punching a few circles at a time, again to help prevent utter tediousness. Once your green circles have been punched to your heart’s content, line up red and yellow circles behind and tape or glue. I used plain scotch tape, trying to be frugal with it since there were so many circles being taped.

Then just line up the circles in a large triangle shape and again tape or glue the circles together to form a tree shape. Hang on the wall or window or refrigerator of your choice.

To make the tree trunk I just grabbed a bit of cardboard off a box that was lying around and trimmed it to size and hung that up behind and underneath the tree. Voila!

This project was inspired by a few things I saw across the web but I improvised to make it suit the things we had lying around, etc.

Here are several holiday craft ideas that I am coveting right now:

• snowflake paintings @ frugal family fun blog
• snow cone christmas tree @ blissfully domestic
• paint stick snow ruler craft @ pink and green mama (we might not make this one until next year when we’re in a house)
• daddy’s brag book @ frugal family fun blog
• festive scented playdough @ Mini-eco
• colorful felt holiday trees @ re-nest
• advent calendar @ collecting the moments (this is another one that will wait until next year)
• holiday card wreath @ katydid & kid
• wine bottle light @ wit and whistle
• recycled snowman vase @ frugal family fun blog