Christmas Star Gift Craft

This year, our younger daughter is in a program for 2 year olds at our local preschool. We were searching for a gift that she could make for her teachers and decided this simple Christmas star gift craft was perfect. Both of our girls, at 2 years old and 6 years old, made this craft together and they turned out great. All you need for this is a package of precut wooden stars, paint and glitter! Since we plan on giving some of the star gifts to teachers we glued a magnet to the back of of some of them as we've found that magnets are very useful in classrooms. We attached ribbon to the other stars to be given as ornaments to caregivers and neighbors. Once our handmade Christmas gifts were wrapped up we attached the saying "Thank You for Helping Me Shine!" to the package and had our children sign and scribble their names on.

What you'll need:

  • Package of wooden stars
  • Paint (all colors)
  • Paint brushes
  • Glitter (lots of colors)
  • Magnets
  • Ribbon
  • Hot glue gun - optional and for adults only
  • Paper plates
  • Scotch tape
How to make your Christmas star magnets:
  • In order to save some frustration for our little one, I pre-painted the stars white ahead of time. While our older daughter would have no issue with this, expecting a two year old to get a good base coat done on the front, back and edges of the star and wait for it to try is a bit extreme. I used craft paint for this step and then moved on to washable child's paint for the next step. You could skip this step, but it makes the final gift just look more finished.
  • Once our base coat was dry, I used scotch tape to tape the stars down to a paper plate. This is a great trick for anyone painting a smaller object with children. It takes away the frustration of the object sliding away from the child and avoids fingers getting unintentionally painted for any children going through a "paint is icky" phase.
  • Let you child paint their stars whatever colors they would like.
  • While the paint is still wet, sprinkle glitter onto the star so it sparkles.
  • Once everything is dry attach your magnet or ribbon to the back of the star and wrap it up. While we try to avoid using hot glue, it does seem to be the best way to attach a magnet to something and expect it to last.
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