Hand Picture Ornament - These make a great keepsake, especially if you do a new one each year. It gives you the opportunity to see how much your child has grown over the last year, and it gives your Christmas tree a personal touch. You'll need: Cardboard (I use old file folders), fun foam (or felt, etc.) marking pen, scissors, your child's picture, ribbon, glue.

Trace your child's hand on the cardboard and cut it out to make a template. Use your template to trace the hand out two times on fun foam or felt and cut both out. Cut a hole in the center of one of the hands so that it will frame your child's picture (I used one of my circle cutters from my scrapbook supplies for this.) Sandwich the picture between the two hands and glue all around so that the picture won't come out (you can also put a small piece of thin plastic over the picture to protect it). Once the hands are securely glued together, you can poke a small hole in the tallest finger of your ornament and thread your ribbon through it to hang. Don't forget to write the year on the back in permanent ink.

Holiday Candle - You'll need a jar (baby food jars work well), glue that dries clear, colored tissue paper, glitter, ribbon, votive or tealight candle, paintbrush. Tear your tissue paper into smaller pieces. Paint the jar with glue and attach the pieces of tissue paper (you may have to dilute the glue slightly with water). Randomly add some glitter (optional). Let dry and then tie a ribbon around the top, making sure that it won't interfere with the candle's flame. Put your candle inside. This makes a great gift or holiday decoration, but be sure to keep the lighted candle out of reach of children.

Crackers - These are really easy for kids to make. They make great decorations, gifts for their friends, etc. It's tough to make sure they don't eat all the candy though! Put candy or small toys inside empty cardboard tissue tubes. Wrap colored tissue paper (or wrapping paper, reprinted sheet music, etc.) around the tube. Glue or tape in place along the seem if necessary. Gather each end and tie with ribbon. Kids love to pop them open later for a treat. My kids loved making them for their friends in the neighborhood.

Cardboard Tissue Tube Santa - Wrap a cardboard tube with a 4 x 2 inch sheet of red paper and glue in place. To make the face, use a 3 inch wide circle of pink paper and glue in place. For the hat, cut a 4 inch wide half circle and roll it into a cone. Glue in place on top of Santa's head. Put a rectangular strip of white paper around his forhead. Put a black strip of paper around Santa's middle for a belt. Either glue on pieces of paper for his facial features, draw them on, or use google eyes. When that is done, tear some cotton balls apart and glue on for his beard, hatband, and make a pom pom on the top of his hat. This craft can be adapted to make just about anything including: Sanat, Mrs. Claus, Reindeer, Snowmen, Elves, Angels, etc. In addition, you don't just have to use toilet paper tubes. You can also use paper towel rolls and wrapping paper rolls.

Paper Plate Wreath - Cut a hole in the center of the paper plate so that you have a ring that is about three inches wide. Cut green tissue paper (or tear it for a different effect) into 2 inch squares. Crumple each square up slightly and glue the center onto the plate. Fill the plate in with the green pieces, then go back and add red pieces randomly to make berries. Punch a hole in the top and thread the a ribbon or piece of yarn through to hang the wreath. You can embellish this project with a bow, glitter, etc. My kids love this project.

Popsicle Stick Rudolph Ornament - Glue 3 popsicle sticks together to form a triangle - or a really fat, upside down capital A. This will form the reindeer's head, so you want the sticks to meet exactly at the nose, but not quite meet at the top two corners so that they form two small antler points. Glue on wiggle eyes and a red pom pom nose on. On the backside, glue each end of a six inch piece of ribbon about 2 inches apart to make a hanger.

Pine Cone Christmas Tree - Cut a six inch length of ribbon. Tie it into a circle and glue the tied section to the pointy tip of the pine cone. Hold the pine cone by the ribbon and put little spots of glue on the tips of the tree's "branches" and sprinkle with glitter (or just use glitter glue). Also put some glue around the bottom of the "tree" and glue on some cotton to make it look like the tree is sitting in snow. If your pinecone is big enough, you can even put some snow on the tree's "branches". When the glue is dry, you can use anything you like to decorate your tree. Some things to try: yarn, rick-rack, beads, sequins, tinsel, ribbons, etc. You can also use a hole punch to make little round ornaments to glue to the tree.

Candy Cane Reindeer - You'll need: Low temp hot glue gun, ribbons or yarn for hanging, 1 wrapped candy cane (this has to be wrapped around the candy, not a 'bagged' candycane, 1 little pom-pom for the nose, 2 little wiggle eyes, brown pipe cleaners for the antlers.

Make antlers out of the pipecleaners and wrap them around the candycane on the curve and glue them. Add two wiggle eyes and a pom-pom nose.

Juice Lid Ornament - Cut a favorite picture from an old Christmas card. Using a juice can lid, trace and cut a circle from construction paper. Glue the picture onto the paper and the paper onto the lid. Glue a piece of ribbon to the back for a hanger. If you want to make it a bit more festive, you can spray paint the lids in gold, green or red, and you can glue lace, ribbons, etc. around the outside of the lid.