The holiday season is here! As parents, we know how valuable it is to spend quality time with our kids. This season, get your kids into the holiday spirit by helping them with these easy sewing projects. Being able to sew is an important skill and it’s easier than you might think!

Starting with small projects is fun and learning basic sewing skills enables kids to make items while adding their own design ideas. It’s easy to learn how to use a needle and thread and kids will be excited to create gifts for their family and friends.

You don’t need large pieces of fabric for these projects. Re-use scraps left over from other projects or fabrics you find in the house such as old pillowcases, out-grown clothing, old tablecloths and recycled fabrics or visit your local fabric store and look for offcuts and remnants, which are often affordable. The only tools you will need are kid-friendly large needles, pins, thread and scissors. Check out YouTube for short tutorials on how to do the running stitch.

Here are three easy holiday sewing projects to try with the kids this season:

December Bunting

Brighten up your house this holiday season with bunting (or banner)! Festive bunting is simple to assemble and can be made from scraps of green, red and white fabrics. Cut out fabric triangles with dimensions of 16cm for the top edge and 22cm for the sides. With a running stitch, stitch two edges of two triangles together. Turn inside out and finish stitching the third seam. Iron the triangles flat. Make as many triangles as you want. Sew your finished triangles onto a long red or green ribbon. Hang the bunting over the stairwell, across windows, on a wall for a party decoration or even over a bed.

Holiday Shopping Bag

Decorate a handy shopping bag with festive cut-outs. Find a fabric shopping bag. If there is a logo or decoration on the bag, turn the bag inside out. Cut out large snowflakes from white fabric, holly leaves from green fabric or candy cane shapes from red fabric. Arrange the shapes onto the outside of the bag and pin in place. Then, stitch the shapes to the bag using a running stitch. Decorate with sequins, beads, fancy buttons or glitter glue.

Snowman Sweater

Find a plain sweater or t-shirt, preferably red or green, that has no logo or design on the front. On white fabric or felt, trace two circles of different sizes. Trace around a tea cup saucer for the smaller circle, then a side plate for the larger circle. Cut out the two circles and stitch them on to the front of the sweater with a running stitch to form the snowman. Add a hat from black fabric, plastic googly eyes (or button eyes) and a nose and smile. Use your imagination for decorating the snowman.

There are many good sewing instruction books for kids at the library. My first Stitching and Sewing Book by Emma Hardy contains excellent easy projects and Stitch-by-Stitch: A Beginners Guide to Needlecraft by Jane Bull is full of useful information and projects.

Happy sewing!

It’s a blustery West Coast afternoon, but my three oldest grandchildren and I aren’t worried about the weather. We’re warm and snug inside, rolling up our sleeves in preparation for a few hours of creative adventure. I’ve supplied the large table and the craft supplies; they’ve brought the unfettered enthusiasm and sky-high imaginations of four-, five- and seven-year-olds.

The rules are simple: be kind, be safe and have fun! There are no other expectations for our afternoon together. I don’t know how long my grandkids will remain engaged in this activity, and I have no preconceived ideas about what our crafting will produce. We are freestyling, operating without instructions, plans, or even Pinterest pictures to guide us. Our craft materials are our only source of inspiration.

The craft supplies themselves are rudimentary. We have three pairs of scissors of various sizes, rolls of scotch and masking tape, washable markers, crayons and sheets of coloured paper. But most important, we have a laundry hamper overflowing with materials otherwise destined for the recycling bin: cardboard boxes and tubes, plastic lids and containers, cards and flyers and other miscellaneous paper goods. In other words, a creative treasure trove!

Seven-year-old Kieran takes the lead. He wants to make a model replica of Ladysmith, our mutual hometown. I suggest that we might not be able to construct the entire town in one afternoon, but we can certainly start with our favourite buildings. Kieran immediately gets underway on a very impressive version of Ladysmith’s post office. His younger sister Dahlia and cousin Rhea are game to contribute to the town as well, but need a little help constructing their buildings. In four-year-old Rhea’s case, a box turned inside-out makes an excellent Aggie Hall—with the addition of a sloped roof of course. Five-year-old Dahlia has her heart set on making a “baby house,” which she decorates with a door, a window and a pipe cleaner balloon.

While Kieran continues work on the post office, I contribute a few more buildings for my granddaughters to decorate: two six-story apartment complexes (inspired by the size and shape of the boxes in our stash, rather than any actual Ladysmith structures) and a very basic model of our local grocery store. To jazz up the grocery store, we turn its roof into a park. Kieran supplies the bench, water slide and pool.

It’s hard work building a town from scratch, and after an hour and a half my three builders let me know they’re ready for a tea break. Assuming their interest is waning, I begin to tidy up our surplus materials. But no—they aren’t quite finished after all! Fortified by licorice tea and homemade applesauce, they’re ready for their second shift. Again, Kieran leads the way, suggesting a quick trip outside to hunt for sticks to turn into trees.

The second shift goes as smoothly as the first. Kieran adds a tree-house platform to his stick-tree, and then moves on to building a church complete with a steeple and pipe cleaner cross. Dahlia and Rhea turn their attention to colouring and cutting out decorations for their original structures.

Finally, the moment we’ve been working toward arrives. We position our structures and trees on a larger sheet of cardboard, and just like that our little town is complete. Well, almost complete. “We need people!” says Kieran. He’s right, of course. Happily, we have a bag of Lego people nearby, just waiting to populate our new community.

My twin daughters arrive to collect their children three hours after they dropped them off—and find them still engrossed in their cardboard town. By any measure, our first “crafternoon” together has been a success. Since I had almost as much fun as my grandkids, I assure them it won’t be our last.

Crafternoon Tips:

If a completely open-ended crafternoon seems a little daunting, the internet is full of great ideas to get your creative wheels turning. That said, with the right materials at their disposal, your grandchildren might surprise and delight you with their own original ideas.

Beyond the basics like scissors, glue, tape, paint, markers and/or crayons, some of the best crafting materials are the ones you rescue from your recycling bin or wastebasket. Keep a box or two for potential materials: cardboard boxes of various sizes, paper tubes, interesting plastic packaging, greeting cards, scrap fabric, extra buttons, etc.!

Finally, experience has taught me that any activity goes better when I check my expectations and follow my grandchildren’s lead as much as possible. Set parameters for the essentials like safety and healthy behaviour, of course, but do your best to surrender the rest. You never know where your grandchildren’s creativity will take you, but it’s sure to be interesting!

Years ago, whenever my family went travelling, my parents encouraged both my brother and me to keep a travel journal. We would write about our days—what we had seen, where we had gone, what was our favourite part of the day. We would cut up brochures and newspapers and collect postcards to glue in the pages. When we got home, we’d have our photos printed to add in. Now, I can take out those journals and remember our adventures and see what my younger self was thinking and feeling.

Today, I find myself thinking about how we have fewer opportunities to travel because we’re encouraged to stay local. Our daily lives have changed and adjusting to this “new normal” takes time and effort. Recording this time, these changing habits, could be a way to help us process and reflect on the world around us. This connection to what’s around us and the process of recording it, similar to my old travel journals, could take the form of nature journaling.

Nature journaling is a way of connecting to nature and the world around you through writing, storytelling, or drawing. It can be simple with a pencil and notebook, or elaborate with paints, brushes, and sketchbooks. It can be full of poems and short stories, or drawings and paintings, or plant rubbings and tracings. A nature journal helps you stop and focus on the world around you—whether it’s a tree rustling in the breeze, a squirrel chittering high in a tree, or a waterfall rushing over rocks.

A great way to start your own family nature journal is by visiting a nearby regional park, beach, or your backyard without a pencil or paper. Get started by simply observing nature without recording it. Have everyone get down low to the ground and try to spot some insects crawling around. Find leaves from different trees on the ground and compare them through touch, smell, and sight. Listen for songbirds hidden amongst the trees and see if anyone can mimic their call.

Really take your time in observing everything around you and when you return home, ask everyone what they enjoyed most from the day. Do they have a story about the day? Storytelling can be one technique to gather ideas for nature journaling. The art of storytelling has been done for thousands of years by Indigenous peoples across Canada. Indigenous peoples observe and learn from the environment in a variety of ways that could include observations of animal behaviour, changing seasons, or migratory paths of birds. The knowledge gained is then passed on through ceremonies and oral storytelling.

After sharing your stories, the next time you head out for an adventure, bring some pencils and paper with you. Let everyone choose what they want to write or draw about. For younger kids, tracing leaves on paper can be a great way to fine-tune motor skills. Or have them do some leaf rubbings and they can go wild with their pencil. Older kids can try their hand at sketching or writing down what they observe.

One of the most important things for nature journaling is for you, the adult, to join in! When you participate, it encourages the kids to engage, especially if you’re enthusiastic. And if/when you make a mistake—show the kids! It takes the pressure off the kids to be perfect and they won’t feel bad if they make a mistake. Laugh about it and keep it in the journal as just another experience to look back on.

Numerous studies have shown that spending time in nature helps not only physical health but emotional and mental health as well. This is especially key in these changing times when there’s so much uncertainty in the air. Nature journaling gives you the opportunity to slow down and observe your surroundings, recording, learning, and reflecting as you go.

Whether through species counts, weather observations, plant measurements, storytelling, drawings, paintings, or poems, your nature journal is purely a way for you to connect with nature and the world around you. There is no right or wrong way to keep a nature journal. It is for you and your family and any imperfections are what make the journal unique.

When out nature journaling, please help keep regional parks safe and open by practicing physical distancing from other visitors and staying home if you’re sick. For up to date information on CRD Regional Parks, visit www.crd.bc.ca/about/news/covid-19-information.

When you think of art, you likely think of paintings in an expensive gallery or sculptures that have taken hours to make, but art can be accessible for everyone when it’s made outdoors. Art can be about connecting to your surroundings in a new way and slowing down to notice things you might have otherwise overlooked. A fun, easy, cost-effective and environmentally-friendly way to incorporate art in you and your family’s life is to make art in nature, using materials you find outside. Not only will you be able to express your creativity, but you will also get outside and connect with your natural environment, which has been shown to have numerous physical and mental benefits. Making art in nature also allows you to see familiar places with a new lens. Here are some activities that focus on shape, colour and texture to get you started.

Shape: Nature Mosaic

Explore shape by using natural items around you to create a mosaic on the ground. Create images of animals, places, a favourite cartoon character, or even a self-portrait. Breaking the items into pieces allows you to isolate what shapes go into making an image. If you want to create something more abstract, arrange objects in a geometric pattern while experimenting with repetition of similar shapes and objects of different sizes. Use your imagination and the opportunities are endless!

Colour: Value Bar, Colour Wheel & Colour Hunt

Make a value bar, a gradient of the same colour from light to dark, by arranging natural items in a line. If there are a lot of different colours around, make a colour wheel by arranging objects of every colour of the rainbow in a circle and transitioning gradually between shades. If there aren’t many items on the ground that you can pick up, try doing a colour hunt. Bring some small pieces of coloured paper (paint colour samples from a hardware store work well, or you can make your own with coloured markers or construction paper) and try to find items in nature that match the shade on each piece. Repeat these exercises at different times of the year to experience the seasonal changes in colour.

Texture: Crayon Rubbing

Document the variety of textures in nature by making a rubbing. All you need are some pieces of printer paper cut into whatever sizes or shapes you would like and a few wax crayons (with the paper removed). Simply place your paper over the item and lay the crayon flat over the paper. With firm pressure, rub the crayon over the paper and watch the textures emerge onto the page as you go. Good items to make rubbings with include dead leaves, tree bark, western red cedar branches, fern fronds, or anything relatively flat. Nature rubbings make great cards or decorations for recycled giftwrap.

With these activities in your arsenal you’re sure to experience nature in a new way, express your creativity, and connect with your family at the same time! Please remember that you can help ensure our natural spaces stay healthy when making art in nature. Please stay on designated trails to protect habitat. When looking for materials to use in your nature art, use loose items you find on the ground and avoid picking living plants. Instead of removing items from nature, you can take a picture of your creations to take home. The best approach is to take only memories and leave only footprints.

Looking for nature programs the whole family will enjoy? Join CRD Regional Parks naturalists for free guided walks and drop-in events for all ages. For more information, visit www.crd.bc.ca/about/events.