Nothing says ‘Christmas joy’ like festive decor sprinkled around the home. This season, instead of spending big on cushions, pine garlands and tinsel, why not create your own trimmings with these easy Christmas crafts? Fun for young and the young-at-heart, these projects will add a merry mood to your space, whether you like your Christmas decor understated and elegant, or big, bold and bright.

Jumbo Christmas Holly Garland

An oversized holly garland makes a great Christmas craft for kids.

Bigger is always better at Christmas time and this oversized cardboard ‘holly’ garland makes a massive impact but is so easy to make. It’s also a great Christmas craft for kids – and the luscious green creation will look magnificent slung over a mantlepiece or doorway.

Making a holly garland is one of several fun Christmas paper crafts.

Step 1: Create your large holly leaves by folding green sheets of cardboard and paper in half, lengthways.

Step 2: Cut from the bottom inside corner outwards, then scoop back in and out until you reach the top inside corner of the paper, and make a point.

Step 3: Unfold the paper to reveal holly leaves. Repeat till you have lots of leaves in different colours, sizes and stock.

Step 4: Use a hole punch to create holes in the bottom point of each of the leaves, so you can string them together.

Step 5: Grab a mixed batch of leaves and start weaving the twine through the holes, creating knots as you go around small bunches of the leaves.

Step 6: Take some red pom poms, and using glue, stick a couple where the leaves meet the twine on random sections of your garland.

Christmas crafts: make a holly garland using coloured paper, cardboard, string and pom poms.

What You’ll Need

SEE ALSO: 5 DIY Christmas Ornaments for a Special One-of-a-Kind Gift

Elegant Christmas Carol Trees

A beautiful Christmas paper crafts project is Christmas carol trees.

This DIY Christmas paper crafts project is whimsical and fun, perfect for those that find papercraft meditative. Print out Christmas carols sheet music to make a nostalgic base, and you can organise your printing with a few clicks thanks to Officeworks Print & Copy. Once you have your sheets, simply turn on the festive tunes and start folding and gluing.

You can print out sheets of carol music at Officeworks Print & Copy counter.

Step 1: Take a sheet of printed carol paper and fold it accordion-style back and forth with nice tight folds, until you reach the end. Repeat until you have around five or six sheets of folded carol paper.

Step 2: Create your cone foundation by twisting a piece of A4 white card into a cone shape. Glue into place and trim the excess.

Step 3: Add some hot glue to the tip of the cone and gently press a pinched piece of folded carol paper onto the cone and hold until it is firmly stuck. Repeat all the way around the tip of the cone.

Step 4: Place a little glue along the inner edge of each folded sheet of paper and gently press against the piece next to it, working your way around the cone.

Step 5: Take a chopstick and push through the tip of the cone so that it is peeking out of the top.

Step 6: Using a piece of coloured paper, create a small folded star and glue to the top of the chopstick.

Hot Tip: You can use the instructions for how to make sheet music stars - just on a smaller scale – for this carol tree topper.

Christmas paper crafts: use printed carols and cardboard to make elegant Christmas table decorations.

What You’ll Need

Paper Fairy Lights Bunting

A fun Christmas arts and crafts project to do is this fairy light bunting.

This colourful craft idea puts the bright into ‘merry and bright’! Made out of paper and tissue paper, the finished product is lightweight and can be strung anywhere from over a bedhead or doorway to on the Christmas tree itself.

Making Christmas paper bunting is an easy Christmas crafts project for kids.

Step 1: Cut coloured paper into strips, then glue the two ends together to make a ring with a ‘socket’ sticking out the top.

Step 2: Take tissue paper in a matching colour and gently bunch it up into a ball and press into the middle of the paper ring, creating your ‘light bulb’.

Step 3: Cut a piece of black paper into strips. Bend each strip into a small rectangle shape, with the ends overlapping. Join the overlapping ends together to make a hollow rectangle, and glue ends to secure.

Step 4: Using pointy scissors, poke a hole in the ‘socket’ part of the coloured paper tip, then place the black rectangular shape over the top.

Step 5: Carefully push a long piece of black twine through the hole in each ‘light bulb’, pulling it through and repeating so that the ‘lights’ are strung together.

Use tissue paper and colour paper to make easy DIY Christmas decorations.

What You’ll Need

Cardboard Snowflake Wall Hanging

Beautiful Christmas crafts: make these paper snowflakes for a festive DIY decoration.

While most of us won’t have a white Christmas, a classic snowflake design always says ‘Santa is coming’. Embrace an old-school festive feel in your home, with a wall of cardboard snowflakes hanging from clear string. Once you get into the rhythm of folding and gluing, you’ll find yourself not wanting to stop. We hope you have a nice big wall for your newest Christmas craft project!

Christmas craft ideas include these paper snowflake decorations.

Step 1: Take a piece of A4 white paper or cardboard and fold the bottom corner upwards to make a triangle. Then trim along the edge of the triangle, so that when you open the fold, you have a square piece of paper.

Step 2: While folded as a triangle, make two small, angled cuts from near the middle of the folded side upwards towards the point, making sure they don’t touch. Then repeat about a centimetre out from that and repeat again.

Step 3: Open it back up to reveal a square with diamond-style cuts in it. Take the inside two edges and pull them together and add a small amount of hot glue to seal. Flip the cardboard over and do the same thing with the next pieces and seal. Then flip back and pull the next two pieces together. Glue and repeat until all strips have been sealed together on alternate sides. 

Step 4: Repeat the whole process until you have six parts of your snowflake. Take two and overlap the bottom points and glue together. Do this until you have three pairs.

Step 5: Then take each pair and add glue to the inside fold, and gently press together with the other two pairs, creating your six-point snowflake. Add a small amount of glue to the inside of each midpoint and press it against the next one to make it really secure.

Step 6: Use some clear wire or string and hook it through the top of your snowflake, make a knot and then tie the decoration up somewhere high in your home, like on a curtain rod, veranda railing or even on clear sticky hooks on a wall.

Fun Christmas crafts for kids (and adults!) include making paper snowflakes.

What You’ll Need

Family Photo String

Christmas paper crafts include making a family photo string to treasure for Christmases to come.

Embrace nostalgic Christmas memories by printing out old family photos onto cardboard, using Officeworks Print & Copy, and turning them into a festive string. Not only will it look gorgeous hanging around your home, the photo string would be equally sweet weaving its way down the middle of the Christmas lunch table, doubling as a conversation starter.

Enjoy making this Christmas arts and crafts project with the whole family.

Step 1: Take your sheets of printed photo paper or board and use a small circular object to trace circles around the photos. Cut out. Repeat until you have a big pile of circles.

Step 2: Match up your photo circles in pairs, and make a cut from the bottom up on one circle and from the top down on another circle.

Step 3: Join the two circles by sliding them together using the two cuts, and secure with a tiny bit of glue.

Step 4: Weave a length of clear wire between the available cuts in the circles, tying knots where you need to hold the photo pieces in place and repeat until you have a full length of photo bunting.

HOT TIP: Printing double-sided means you will see photos from every angle when you create this project.

To make a family photo string as a DIY Christmas crafts project, get your favourite photos printed on thick paper or card.

What You’ll Need

SEE ALSO: How To DIY Christmas Cards & Wrapping Paper

Cardboard Pine Cone Wreath

Easy Christmas crafts: make an evergreen holly wreath.

Your front door will never have looked as inviting as it will when adorned with this DIY wreath. This craft project requires patience and concentration, so start this one a few weeks before the 25th to make sure it has time to shine – that way, everyone from the guests to the postie will get to enjoy it.

Christmas arts and crafts projects include making this sweet paper wreath.

Step 1: Bunch up a piece of green paper and use sticky tape to create a pine cone-like shape.

Step 2: Take a sheet of green corrugated cardboard and, making sure the lines are vertical, fold it in half and start cutting petal-like shapes, always cutting in the same direction along the corrugated lines. 

Step 3: Once you have a pile of different sized petals, start with the smallest and add hot glue to the tip of the paper cone foundation. Press your petals on, folding them around each other as you go. Keep gluing on the petals, overlapping each other and always pointing in the same direction.

Step 4: Repeat to make more pine cones. When you have a nice big pile, make a base out of foam board. Trace some big circular objects, like plates, to make a ring shape on the foam board. Cut out using a scalpel for a clean edge and then paint green to blend in with the pinecones.

Step 5: Glue your pinecones onto the foam board ring using hot glue. Overlap and layer them for height and texture.

Step 6: Finally, add some small red pom poms as cute ‘berries’ and then lightly brush the whole wreath with some green paint to soften the edges of the corrugated cardboard and also add some depth.

Christmas crafts for kids and the whole family: make a holly wreath from corrugated cardboard and red pom poms.

What You’ll Need

Mini-Paper Bag Advent Calendar

This mini paper bag Advent calendar is a fun Christmas crafts idea.

If you want a chocolate alternative this year, this crafty Advent calendar will look lovely hanging on a wall, thanks to its simple monochrome style. The paper bags themselves are simple and easy to create and can be filled with anything from jokes or love notes to stickers or small surprises. Just make sure the contents are nice and light and you are good to go. 

Making a mini paper Advent calendar is a clever DIY Christmas crafts project the family will love.

Step 1: Take a piece of white A4 paper and fold in half, then cut along the seam to create two pieces.

Step 2: Take one of the pieces of paper and place it horizontally, bringing both sides together from the outside towards the middle, overlapping just a tiny amount,

Step 3: Add some glue to the small overlap to secure the edges together, being careful not to get glue on any of the rest of the paper.

Step 4: Fold each of the edges a bit in again, then make another fold from the bottom upwards to create a crease. Open the base of the bag, pressing both sides in towards the opening to make a diamond shape.

Step 5: Fold the bottom and the top points of the diamond together and carefully glue them together, to make the bottom of the bag.

Step 6: Once dry, gently push your hand into the top of the bag and ‘pop’ open the sides and press down against the folded base. You can pinch the side seams to strengthen them. Fill with lightweight surprises, notes or treats.

Step 7: Fold down the top like you would with a paper lunch bag, and use a hole punch to make a hole through the top. Finally, using random lengths of string, attach your mini bags to a branch, garland or even sticky hooks on a wall. Then, using a marker, number them from 1 to 24.

Exciting Christmas craft ideas: make a mini paper bag Advent calendar using paper and twine.

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Tiny Place Name Trees

Cute Christmas paper crafts include making these place name trees.

Add a handmade touch to the Christmas table with little crepe paper Christmas trees that double as name cards for friends and family. While this project has a few steps, it’s surprisingly simple, so will be a favourite of the kids, too. And don’t be surprised if guests take them home, it will be hard to resist. 

Unique Christmas crafts ideas include setting the table with place name Christmas trees.

Step 1: Make a small cone by twisting a piece of green paper, securing with sticky tape and trimming the excess.

Step 2: Take some green crepe paper, cut a strip off and then use scissors to fray the edges of the strip to make ‘leaves’. 

Step 3: Use a glue stick to secure the frayed crepe paper to the cone, starting at the bottom and working your way to the top. Pieces can be layered over one another.

Step 4: Trim a small piece of yellow crepe paper, bunch it in the middle and use the end of scissors to cut into the ends to make a little frilly ‘star’.

Step 5: Trim a skewer to size and then insert into the tree so that the pointy end is at the bottom and the flat end pokes out the top of the cone. Add some tape inside the cone to hold the stick in place and glue the yellow star to the top of the stick.

Step 6: Paint your corks black. Once dry, press the sharp end of your baking stick into the middle of the wide end of the cork, making a pot-base.

Step 7: Cut a circle out of red paper, attach your tiny tree to the middle and write your guests name with a chalk pen on the red base.

Make paper Christmas tree place names with cardboard and crepe paper.

What You’ll Need

SEE ALSO: 10 Festive Crafts That Double as DIY Christmas Gifts