Christmas craft designs for kids who've been....very good this year...

Christmas tree with Santa's little helpers

Our little sprites will just love making Santa's little helpers to hang on the Christmas tree...

To make one of Santa's helpers, you will need: - two lengths of pipe-cleaner, - pieces of soft felt: a circle, a rectangle (make a hole in this shape), and a triangle, - a mini pom pon, - a round wooden bead (0.8 to 1 inch in diameter). Make the basic skeleton for the body of Santa's helper with the longer pipe-cleaner.

Slide the rectangle over the skeleton, passing the upper loop through the rectangle's central hole.

Use the remaining piece of pipe-cleaner to make a belt. Place the circle of felt onto the upper loop of the pipe-cleaner (after having first made a hole in the circle), then add on the bead, fold the triangle of felt into a cone shape and glue it to the bead. You can also glue on a mini pom pon to the top of the hat. Draw eyes, a nose and a mouth onto the bead.

Paper/cardboard wreath

Loïc, aged 7, made this at school : Christmas arts and craft activities – another thing to celebrate about Christmas!

Wind a strip of gold-colored crepe paper round a polystyrene wreath.
Paint some small polystyrene or papier mache balls and fix them to the wreath with cocktail sticks.
Cut out leaves from a sheet of thick green paper.
Use a metallic felt-tip pen to outline the veins of the leaf. Roll strips of colored corrugated card around the cocktail sticks and hey presto...you've got a beautiful decoration!