Reviewed by Emma Johnston
Christmas Crafts is a colourful and activity packed hardback book with a useful envelope full of 10 reusable cardboard templates at the back. The materials needed to create your decorations all easily found in the home or easily purchased and each template is graded 1 to 5 for difficulty.
My 6 year old was delighted when this arrived for us to review and immediately curled up on the sofa to decide which projects we were to attempt first.
The illustrations and explanations are clear and easy to follow with a wide range of activities to suit all abilities, some requiring an adult to help. We chose 3 activities of varying skill levels to try initially.
The first was the ‘Star-struck Clay Decorations’. This was a great hit. My daughter managed it well by herself following the instructions and was happily occupied for several hours.
The second project chosen was the ‘Festive Felt Garland’. A more challenging project for us both to get stuck into. I would recommend taking time before starting this project to cut out the templates needed as it can be a bit time consuming. However, we both had great fun decorating each item and assembling the garland together. The section at the beginning of the book detailing sewing techniques and stitches proved very useful. It took us 1½ hours to complete, but the result is gorgeous. It is already hanging pride of please across our fireplace!
The third project chosen was the ‘Wrapping Paper’. Clear instructions and illustrations made this a thoroughly enjoyable project to complete. Even my 2 year old had fun with this one! We now have lots of beautiful wrapping paper just waiting to be used.
Overall, this is a lovely book full of decorative ideas and gifts for Christmas. Perfect for keeping the kids (and adults) occupied on wet December afternoons. We already have our projects chosen for next weekend! I can see this book becoming a regular part of our run up to the festive season!
Rating: 5/5
RRP: £9.99
Suitable for ages 7-11 years (Key Stage 2)
Available to buy from QED Publishing here.
