Christmas Decoration Craft
Pre-Christmas time is such a magical time. All the lights on the streets, decorations in homes, Christmas trees looking out of windows, and that feeling that some kind of miracle is about to happen! I love to have little rituals while waiting for Christmas, like opening the advent calendar every day, decorating the Christmas tree altogether as a family, or making a Christmas tree decoration ourselves. This year we made a little house with a thatched roof and an electric tea light inside, and both my daughter and I were excited to put it on the Christmas tree!
I have to warn you that the roof required patience from both Mommy and the child. But the look is so worth it! Below is what we used and the steps we followed to make our decoration.
Steps:
We decorated the core of the toilet paper roll, cut approximately in half, with the tartan paper by gluing it around. My three-year-old daughter was able to cut and glue the paper with only a little help from me.
We made the bottom of the house from the same tartan paper, making a circle and adding a little extra space on the sides to bend it inwards and glue it to the house.
We made round windows using a circular punch. ( My daughter loves to play with punches. I have a few shapes for her.)
Now that the house had a bottom and the windows, we switched the electric tea light candle on and put it inside.
Then it came to the feature of the house - the thatched roof! First, we made a larger circle and created a cone from it by cutting along the radius and gluing the sides closer together.
Mommy then needed to put an engineering hat on and to figure out how to attach the roof to the house. I used three strips of paper glued to the roof and the house on the inside to do that, and it did the trick.
For the wonderful thatched effect, we used pine cones. We dried the pine cones at home, and they opened wide. We then cut off the pine cone “leaves” to use for the roof. Using strong glue, we attached the pine cone pieces to the roof. This part needed patience and two pine cones. If you think you prefer not to spend too much time and effort on this, the roof can be painted or decorated with tartan paper as well. But I personally think the effort was worth it!
Good luck! And please tag me on Instagram if you make one. I would love to see your pictures!
