There is no need to deck the halls of your home with prickly boughs of holly when you can make your own delightful holiday decorations. Lots of kids' sites feature holiday crafts, primarily for Christmas, but also for Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, and Ramadan.

I really enjoy crafts, especially pottery and knitting. Over the years, I've made my share of kids' crafts too--with varying success. I've learned that crafts are more fun to make and I am happier with the results when I start with a well-designed craft site.

Look Before You Make

Now, when I evaluate a craft site I pull out my wish list of craft site features. To me, a perfect craft site begins with a photograph, or at least a drawing, of each completed craft; I like to see what I am trying to create. Ideally each craft page includes a complete materials list using supplies that are easy to find around the house, as opposed to special items which have to be purchased. There should be clearly written, step-by-step instructions that are illustrated if the construction is complicated. I also like to see a difficulty rating, or age rating, so I can quickly assess how hard a craft will be to make. Suggestions for simplifying crafts to suit younger children are great too. I prefer crafts which have printable black-and-white patterns ready to be colored by hand. Some sites only offer patterns in color. I don't have a color printer and I am sure a lot of you don't either.

Craftsy Christmas

I am amazed by the variety of kids' craft ideas available online. With paper, crayons and a jumble of recycled household goods you can create ornaments, window decorations, table centerpieces, and streamers reflecting different cultures, customs and world religions. Here are a handful of my favorite holiday decorating craft sites.

The bulk of this season's craft sites are for Christmas, dealing with both Christian and secular themes. Like everything else to do with Christmas, these Web sites all have advertising.

DLTK's Printable Crafts for Kids has an ever-expanding Christmas section. Leanne Guenther created this site for her own children two years ago and it has grown quite popular. You'll find pages of Angel Crafts, Other Christmas Crafts, and Winter Crafts made using juice cans, toilet paper rolls, paper plates, dried beans, and other easy-to-find stuff. Most crafts include templates (patterns) with black-and-white line drawings, as well as color ones ready to assemble. Crafts are marked with their intended age level--for children as young as 2, and up to adult. Besides crafts, this site also has cards, envelopes and tags, coloring pages, songs, e-cards, and more.

Parents Bill and Isabelle Slaght designed a series of holiday sites for their own children and other kids on the Web. Their Absolutely Christmas Fun and Crafts area features a neat 3D manger scene. You can print patterns for a stable, animals, angels, palm trees, and so on. The animals and characters are available as Christmas tree ornaments too. There is also a stand-up village which includes a variety of houses and a church. The manger and village patterns can be downloaded as ZIP files or as a set of printable pages. Several years ago, I made the stand-up village and I continue to display the buildings on my mantle each Christmas season.

One of the best places to find holiday activities, coloring pages, games and crafts is Kid's Domain Christmas Time. This collection of Christmas Crafts is part of the Craft Exchange; visitors contribute craft ideas and the best ones are shared in the Exchange. You can adorn trees, walls and tables with many creative variations of balls, angels, reindeer, toys, and snowmen. Materials required include felt, juice lids, pinecones, yarn, photos, and even fruit loops and sticks of gum. Each craft page lists supplies, instructions and a difficulty rating, a few have patterns, and some also present pictures of the finished items.

Over the past couple of years, the claus.com site has become very commercial. However, its Crafty Crafts section still offers a nice selection of unique crafts cluttered by relatively few ads. Make a dove with folded wings, turn a walnut into a mouse, use peppermint sticks to make a snowman and a poinsettia, and roll paper into a candy cane. All pages have a drawing of the finished project, a supplies list, directions and printable patterns.

Still looking for more? Sherri Osborn's All I Want For Christmas index is chock full of holiday craft ideas. Sherri has gathered kids' Christmas crafts from all over the Web, and added a few original ideas of her own, as well as crafts contributed by users. Links are arranged by theme: Christmas trees, ornaments, Santas, angels, recycled ornaments, and many more. Since these crafts are on many different sites, their quality and features vary. There is also a page of Christmas Family Projects and Winter Crafts from past years.

Hanukkah, Kwanzaa and Ramadan

Every year as December approaches I begin searching for new holiday sites, especially for Hanukkah, Kwanzaa and Ramadan. Compared with Christmas on the Web, there are fewer kids' sites for these occasions, with less to offer.

For Hanukkah crafts, the Jewish Crafts page at Eileen's Favorite Camp Crafts is a wonderful resource. This site was created because children at Eileen's Jewish summer camp wanted to make craft projects all year 'round. You'll find beadie animals, fimo crafts, braiding projects, suncatchers, candles, dreidels, and more. All pages include pictures of completed items, supplies lists and instructions. Kid's Domain, mentioned above, features several Chanukah crafts: dreidels, menorahs, window decorations, and star of David decorations.

Kid's Domain is also one of the few sites that offers Kwanzaa Crafts. Make a Mkeka mat, a Fimo Kinara, a placemat and a family history book. Kwanzaa 4 Kids Crafts has an array of projects. Decorate your home with candle holders and placemats, and decorate yourself with a pasta shell necklace, Kufi hat and African masks. Projects all include pictures, materials lists and instructions. Note that you will have to use Internet Explorer to view this site as the text and pictures appear jumbled in Netscape.

I had a lot of trouble finding any crafts at all for Ramadan. I'm not sure why there are so few quality sites for Muslim kids considering that Islam is a major world religion. The best place to find Ramadan crafts is at Arts/Crafts for Kids by Wendy Hogan. Wendy links to a handful of Ramadan sites and has created a few of her own Ramadan Crafts. You can create a mosque mobile, and a crescent moon and star mobile, decorate a jar to collect donations, and make a Ramadan banner.

Have fun decking your halls with hand-made crafts. Happy holidays!

- Other Columns -



Berit's Browse is where Berit highlights her favorite sites on various themes and discusses her opinions and observations about kids' sites and kids on the Internet. The column is also a great place for to cover topics that you are interested in. Let her know what you'd like to read about!