I hope your December has been going well. For us, the days seem to be flying by — the kids are on a countdown for winter break and we are all looking forward to family coming to visit for Christmas.
And with guests in mind, we have a few activities we are working on to make everyone feel welcome once they arrive. We call them our “Get Ready for the Relatives” projects!
They are all super easy activities that require very few items and can be done with the kids (you must know me by now — if it ain’t simple, it ain’t getting done around here 😉
Today’s craft is a fun ornament or gift tag made from cinnamon sticks!
Cinnamon Stick Christmas Tree
I love this craft because it has so many possibilities — use it as a low-cost ornament the kids make for a gift, a cute decoration to adorn gifts or a scented item to hang in a room or closet {I have one hanging in the kitchen window}.
First up — materials: cinnamon sticks and some colorful ribbon.
Yep, that’s it — just 2 items.
You can find cinnamon sticks in the spice area of your grocery store (or Target) and at craft stores too.
Next is a really great part for the kids to do (with a little supervision). Take each of the cinnamon sticks and run the ends over a spice grater. This will help to bring out the scent of the spice!
This is also great fine motor skill practice — it helps to develop those little finger muscles that are so important for writing.
Cinnamon sticks come in various sizes which works well for this project. Line up all your sticks from largest to smallest in the shape of a tree.
If you need to adjust their size, just score the stick and then cut or break it to fit the size you need.
Now just use the ribbon to tie a knot around each of the cinnamon sticks. Really — that’s all you have to do!
You can decide how much room you’d like between the sticks — we chose to space ours out a little but you could also use a few more than we did and tie them closer together.
We also topped our tree with a jingle bell — because we LOOOVEE jingle bells in this house!
That’s it! It’s such an quick craft that you can easily make a whole handful of these in one afternoon (think teacher gifts and such).
Make sure you save one or two of the cinnamon sticks — you’ll need them for our next “Get Ready for the Relatives” project next week!
You might also like:
