Children's Christmas Crafts no 5 - Christmas Weaving

Christmas wouldn't be Christmas without a bit of weaving. And that's exactly what Christmas craft No 5 brings to you. Children love weaving and using this technique to create all types of craft ideas from cards, to tags, to placemats and so forth. These ideas below can be made into lots of different crafts. If you use thin paper you can laminate your finished weaving and create placemats and coasters. This way they can be wiped clean and reused.

You will need card, patterned paper, glue, ribbon and embellishments

 Completed Christmas Weaving

1.     Select a weaving shape in the style of your choice or draw your own shape

2.     Now select your paper you are going to use to weave with. Think about what colours you want, complementary of contrasting. Cut a few strips of each colour. ( you can use anything to weave with including ribbon, bits of plastic, carrier bags, fabric, plastic cutlery, twigs – you can be as adventurous as you want)

3.     You need to make your slats to weave your paper through. You can do this using a craft knife and steal ruler. Carefully make out your slats using a pencil leaving about a 1 cm gap between each slat. Cut along the lines using a craft knife. Alternatively you can make the lines and fold the shape in half and use scissors to cut along the lines (this will leave a fold make in your shape)

4.     Staring from the back of your shape, weave a strip of paper over and under the cut slats. Secure the ends with glue at the back of the shape.

 First row completed

5.     Select your next strip and weave over and under the alternative slats in contrast to the first strip. This will give you a checker board effect. Continue this method until the shape is full.

6.     Make sure all the ends are securely glued down

7.     I have added glitter glue around the edge of my cracker for a bit of sparkle and attached a felt pre cut reindeer either end of the cracker. You could also tie ribbon around the ends, write messages on and embellish with sequins.

The picture above is from a Christmas crafts training session carried out at a local school - The picture shows a Christmas tree that has had pieces of paper weaved through. As you can see the tree has been painted using acrylic green paint and the member of staff has embellished the tree with buttons and glitter glue.

Something completely different tomorrow...