Planning to place a Christmas tree in your playroom? There are many decorative that are family friendly, colorful and suited to any sized tree.
It is important to be especially safety conscious when decorating a playroom tree, especially if children may be in the room temporarily unsupervised. Ensure the tree is well secured in a sturdy stand and consider using additional mounts to prevent it from falling. Use only non-breakable ornaments. Attach decorations to the tree with ribbons or raffia instead of using wire ornament hooks. If you have children under three in your household, skip the projects that use pieces that may be choking hazards.
Consider the following ideas for safe, fun and playful Christmas tree decorations.
KIDS’ ARTS & CRAFTS TREES
Handmade art is the most precious of tree decorations. Use the following suggestions to help your children make unique and personal ornaments for your playroom tree. Combine these ideas or focus on one type of ornament.
Shrinky Ornaments:
Have your children create ornaments on Shrinky Dinks shrinkable plastic. They can draw any holiday designs on these thin plastic sheets with colored pencils or permanent marking pens; when you bake them, they shrink and thicken into small images, perfect for ornaments. Make sure to create a large hole in each ornament before you shrink it – the hole will shrink too – so you can thread a ribbon through it to hang.
Laminated Paper Ornaments:
Using crayons, markers, colored pencils or paint, create ornaments on paper; make sure to create a front and back piece for each ornament. For younger children, draw an ornament outline on the paper and let them color it in. You may create your own designs or use pictures cut from coloring books or printed clip art.
Either use a home laminator, or the self-laminator at your local copy store to coat several ornaments with plastic at one time. Trim each laminated ornament to leave ¼ inch of plastic around the edge of your design. Use a paper punch to make a hole in the ornament and loop ribbon or raffia through it to hang.
Felt Ornaments
Felt is a wonderful fabric for making children’s crafts. It is sturdy, comes in a wide range of colors and does not fray at the edges. Using a paper pattern of any simple holiday shape – stars, hearts, Christmas trees, stockings and crosses all work well – cut out two matching pieces of felt. Place a small amount of fiberfill stuffing between the layers, keeping it clear of the edges. Use white fabric glue to seal the edges of the felt ornament.
Decorate the outside of the ornament by gluing bits of ribbon, fabric, feathers, sequins, buttons or any other small decorative pieces to it. Sew or glue a ribbon loop to the top of the ornament to hang it from the tree.
Pom-pom Snow Friends
Use glue and groups of three white pom-poms to create simple snow people. For each snow person add googly eyes, felt fabric pieces for scarves, hats and other clothing. Use cotton swabs cut in halves for snow arms.
Painted Wooden Ornaments
Most craft and hobby stores carry a wide selection of unpainted, lightweight wooden ornaments. They are inexpensive and easy for even toddlers to decorate. Start by painting each ornament with craft or tempera paint. You may also add beads, craft foam pieces, plastic “gems”, sequins, ribbon and other decorations to each ornament to really personalize it. Permanent or paint markers can be used over the painted surface to add names, messages and commemorative dates to each ornament.
TREAT TREES
Christmas makes nearly everyone think of sugary treats. Bring this spirit into the playroom with a treat-themed tree.
Candy Tree
Satisfy your sweet tooth by decorating a tree entirely with candy. Use candy canes as your basic decoration, hanging red ones and green ones from alternating branches. Intersperse foil wrapped chocolate Santas and reindeer. Wrap individual chocolate kisses in clear, red or green cellophane and tie the top with red and green ribbons; hang these from smaller branches or use them to decorate a miniature tree.
Gingerbread Cookie Tree
Create sturdy gingerbread cookie dough and cut it into simple holiday shapes. Cook the cookies an additional minute for each tray to get the cookies dry and well-browned on the bottoms. Use an awl, ice pick or other straight punch to create a hole in each cookie, at least ¼ inch from the edge. Allow the cookies to cool and leave them out overnight to dry thoroughly. Use firm royal icing to decorate each ornament with festive colors and patterns. Allow the icing to dry for an entire day before hanging the ornaments. You may hang them uncovered or wrap each ornament tightly in clear cellophane before hanging.
