Make This Handmade Holiday Gift with the Kids

Each of our son’s three children (11, 9 and 3) had separate pre-holiday “Mama & Papa visits” with us over the last 10 days. Aside from the usual activities – games, popcorn & movies, and staying up too late – we amped up the arts & crafts projects to include making a holiday gift for Mom & Dad that everyone could share and enjoy.

Each child made something to showcase their talents and create “their piece” of the family gift. A hand-stenciled cookie jar, dozens of homemade cookies, and a handmade card made for one beautiful, thoughtful and delicious gift for the whole family. With Christmas just around the corner, we went with a Winter Holiday theme, but the project will work for any season or occasion. Just change up the theme, greeting & treats to celebrate Valentine’s Day, Easter, Mother’s Day, birthdays, Fourth of July, Halloween or Hannukah! Be sure to bookmark this post for a future project.

It was really nice to have the chance to work with one child at a time. Not only did working solo control the mess and chaos for me, but each child felt important, “chosen” to make a special component of the family gift. I’m sure if your kitchen work area is larger than mine, you could have children working together on each piece. I’m pretty sure my niece Megan could figure out how all four of her kiddos could be simultaneously involved and have a blast! The key for me was to make all the product selections and have all the supplies on hand for each child’s project. They would undoubtedly unleash their creativity as they chose how to execute their masterpieces. Between Hobby Lobby, Walmart and Kroger, I found everything I needed here in town. Here’s how the project went for us.

STENCILED COOKIE JAR by Seamus (9)
Seamus has always been good at painting, and he’s enjoyed doing it as long as I can remember. Stenciling the cookie jar seemed right up his alley.

I picked up a 1 gallon glass jar with lid (Anchor Hocking Heritage Hill) at Walmart, and Let it Snow & Snowflake Stencils (Brother Sister Design Studio), a pack of foam brushes that included some dot daubers, and Enamel Glass Paint (by Folk Art) at Hobby Lobby. I had rubbing alcohol on hand to prep the jar, and tape to secure the stencils. Everything we needed to know about how to prepare and paint glass for DIY craft projects and how to cure the painted glass project was online.

After separating the different snow flake stencils by cutting them with scissors, Seamus chose where he wanted them to go and taped them in place. The round glass container was a little more tricky than a flat surface. He taped the edges of the stencil patterns, but also used tiny circles of tape under many of the stencil points to make sure paint didn’t creep underneath.

Seamus did a nice job using a light touch to dab the paint onto the stencils. He thought one coat was just enough to make the designs really look “snowy.” After the paint dried for an hour, we peeled away the stencils. It looked awesome! Once the painted jar was cured in the oven, we had a cookie jar ready to fill and one very proud young guy.

HAND-PAINTED GREETING CARD by Erin (3)
While the bigger kids each stayed over a weekend, Erin stayed only one night midweek. She loves to paint and color, and her enthusiasm more than makes up for her accuracy! I had seen several pins of handprint cardinals art on Pinterest. I knew with a little help, Erin could definitely use that technique to make an artwork greeting card to accompany the filled cookie jar.

While I was at Hobby Lobby getting stenciling supplies, I picked up a couple sheets of light blue cardstock. I already had a box of assorted craft paints and brushes, so we were ready to go. Ken helped me paint Erin’s hands and position them on the folded cardstock. Believe me, it took all four of our hands to get the job done without significant red paint collateral damage! No photos of the process (duh!), but Erin was very happy with her painting. To simplify trying to paint the birds’ orange beaks, we gave her small orange construction paper triangles. She did an awesome job with “pin the beak on the bird!”

DECORATING & BAKING COOKIES by Bridget (11)
In preparation for Bridget’s weekend, I baked a double batch of Betty Crocker packaged mix sugar cookies. Instead of dropping the dough by spoonfuls onto the baking sheet, I rolled the dough into small balls, pressing them flat with the bottom of a glass. I needed lots of cookies for Bridget to decorate, and there wouldn’t be time to make the rolled & cut-out cookies I love. Besides, all of my Christmas cutters are hanging on my kitchen Christmas tree! I got the cookies baked before Erin went home, so she also got to decorate a dozen cookies. 🙂

Bridget loves to do anything in the kitchen. This fall she helped me dry herbs in the microwave, and she’s always ready to help cook dinner. But she LOVES to bake, and has since she was Erin’s age. One thing about Bridget’s baking… there is never a lack of sprinkles!

Bridget had fun decorating the circular sugar cookies. She used Wilton Royal Icing to dip many of the cookies for a hard coating before adding other colors. She used Betty Crocker Cookie Frosting in white, red and green to pipe colorful designs, and of course, SPRINKLES! (Or as Erin says, “stinkles!”) Bridget also baked a batch of Spritz cookies with my Kuhn Rikon press and decorated them with – you guessed it – SPRINKLES! They are fabulous favorite cookies, and you can find the recipe in my all-time top post, My Must-Have Holiday Cookies from the 1950s-60s.

Bridget created more than enough cookies to fill the gallon jar! (She has a bag of “refills” in her freezer at home!)

We drove Bridget home on Sunday night, with cookie jar, greeting card and bags of cookies in tow. When we arrived, she, Seamus and Erin went upstairs to Bridget’s bedroom and filled their cookie jar. To enjoy the fresh cookies – and have plenty for Erin to leave out for Santa – they opted to present the family gift early so they could enjoy them the entire week before Christmas. When they came back downstairs and gave their gift, it was so neat to hear the kids each tell their Mom and Dad, “I painted the jar all by myself!”, “Mommy, that’s MY hand!”, “I decorated AND baked cookies!” I was so proud of them. They truly experienced that the spirit of Christmas is the spirit of giving.