The kindergarten is already busy making Christmas decorations for the group rooms and the common hall. Of course, my children would also like to do crafts at home.
I then browsed with the two of them in the Mr Beam Design Store to see what we could make as Christmas decorations.
The two girls liked the reindeer head and the little gnome.
My children had the lovely idea that we could replace the antlers of the reindeer head and the gnome's beard with their handprints, giving our Christmas decorations a very personal touch. A great idea, right?
Material for making Christmas decorations with your children
- Colourful construction paper
- Glue
- Scissors
- Pencil
- a thick felt pen
- optional: glitter glue
- and the two files from the Mr Beam Design Store
Mr Beam trial pack felt box
Sale price
CHF 37.00
Mr Beam Glitter Acrylic Felt, 3mm, A3, various colours (5 pieces each)
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From CHF 17.00
Mr Beam Professional Material Box
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CHF 101.00
Laser cut your Christmas decorations for crafting with your children
Customize your Christmas decoration files to match your children's handprints
The two files from the Mr Beam Designstore that the children chose for our Christmas decorations were originally intended as hangers and stands.
That's why you should adjust the size of the reindeer and the gnome before lasering. The size ratio of the gnome to its beard and the reindeer head to its antlers should be consistent afterwards. The easiest way to do this is in your graphics program, for example Adobe Illustrator, Affinity Designer or CorelDRAW.
To do this, load the file of the reindeer head and the gnome from the Design Store into your design library. There, you click on the three lines on the file and select “Download”.
In your graphics program, you can now adjust the size for making your Christmas decorations to fit your children's hands and delete the elements that are not needed for the Christmas decorations, such as the reindeer head with antlers, the gnome's beard and the standee for the gnome.
To make it easier for me to divide up the laser jobs, I coloured the outlines in the respective colours that the construction paper from which the Christmas decoration element will be lasered will later have. Then save the edited files on your computer.
Reindeer head and gnome as Christmas decorations from Mr Beam
You can now simply drag and drop the files for making your Christmas decorations back into the design library of the Mr Beam software.
You can open both files at the same time in your workspace and then have your Mr Beam laser the elements of your Christmas decoration that should be lasered from the same colour of construction paper in one laser job.
Have the same colours:
- white: the gnome's hearts, the inner parts of the reindeer's ears and eyes
- red: the gnome's hat and the reindeer's nose
- beige: the reindeer's snout and the gnome's nose
Now place the first colour of construction paper in the Mr Beam and focus the laser head.
Then select “Paper” and the corresponding colour under “Material”.
In the laser settings, move the colours of the cutting lines that you do not want to laser in this laser job into the “Skip” field and start the laser job.
The Mr Beam lasers construction paper so quickly that you can stand next to it with the next colour of construction paper, only to be able to trick it a few seconds later because the Mr Beam has already finished the laser job.
Lasering with children - no problem thanks to the CE marking
When the Mr Beam Air Filter II system starts in our home, there is no stopping my children. They get two stools and stand in front of them, transfixed, watching Mr Beam laser.
And that's exactly why I'm so glad we have Mr Beam!
The Mr Beam is a class 1 laser and has a CE marking.
So I can let my children watch without worrying, because I know that if they opened the lid out of sheer curiosity, he would immediately stop the laser job.
And thanks to the Air Filter II system, I don't have to worry about pollutants in the air while the two are standing next to them.
A few minutes later, all the parts for your Christmas decorations are already lasered, and you can start crafting with your children.
Making Christmas decorations with your children
Now you need light brown construction paper for the reindeer's antlers, white construction paper for the gnome's beard, scissors, glue and a pencil.
Children's handprints as a personal touch for the Christmas decorations
Once you have everything ready, the children can paint their handprints on the construction paper with each other or with your support.
To do this, they place their hands on the construction paper and then the contours are drawn with a pencil.
For the gnome's beard, you need a handprint with the fingers together.
The reindeer antlers for your Christmas decorations, however, consist of two handprints with spread fingers. After painting the handprints, the children cut them out.
The children can now glue the Christmas decorations together
All the individual parts for the gnome and the reindeer head as a Christmas decoration are ready, and you can start putting them together. First, the children sorted the individual parts. All elements of the gnome in one pile and all elements of the reindeer head in one pile.
Then they tried out together what could belong where. There were a few laughs because it looked very funny at times. Once everything was positioned, my little daughter applied glue to the backs and they gradually put together our Christmas decorations.
When the glue was dry, we drew a mouth on the reindeer with a thick black felt-tip pen and added a few highlights with the glitter glue.
For example, the gnome's beard has been given a few glitter stripes. We surrounded his hat with red glitter glue and the heart with silver glitter glue.
After the glitter glue has dried, your Christmas decorations are ready.
And then not only the reindeer head and the gnome will glitter, but also the proud eyes of your children!
I hope you and your children have fun imitating!
Your Rina
