Crafts with toddlers – how to make a Christmas wreath

This is a fun craft to do with children, though young children will need quite a bit of parental involvement. It also makes a nice keepsake or gift for the grandparents!

This is a festive wreath made up of hand prints – or rather, hand shapes – decorated with holly pom poms.

I got this idea from the internet and realised that there are a few different ways you can approach this. I began by painting the thick rim of a paper plate green and cutting out the centre. Your child could do this themselves but I didn’t think my two year old would want to wait for the paint to dry until we moved on to the next part.

I realised when the wreath was finished that you can’t really see the paper plate underneath so I could have either used a white paper plate and not needed to paint it, or probably done without the plate altogether. Still, it’s helpful as a guide when you are gluing the hands together to make a nice circle shape.

You need:

A paper plate (potentially green paint and a paintbrush or as mentioned above you can leave it plain) Green card A pen Scissors Glue Red and green pom poms (or you could use sequins, stickers or coloured pens or crayons) Ribbon or string – though you could also hang the wreath itself over a hook Ribbon or bow to decorate (optional).

Draw around your child’s hand onto green card and cut it out. Repeat (or use the first piece of card as a template to cut out more). It will depend on the size of your child’s hand but I needed eight, made from two pieces of A4 card.

Glue around the paper plate ring, overlapping each piece.

Using PVA glue, stick red and green pom poms around the wreath to look like holly and glue or tape a piece of ribbon on the back of the paper plate to hang it. Don’t forget to write the year and the child’s name on the back!

An alternative way of making these that I’ve also seen online is to use green paint and get your child to make handprints on card and place those around the paper plate ring.