Don’t have a lot of time to spend with your kids making Christmas crafts? Not to worry, because the online world is a great source of free images that can be used to create quick and easy holiday craft projects. For example, crafts made from vintage Christmas greeting cards or vintage Christmas clip art found online make projects simple, due to the fact that vintage images are both versatile and very effective at conveying a traditional holiday feel. Because of their age, vintage images can also be downloaded and used without fear of copyright infringement. That’s a terrific bonus, because you don’t have to worry about using other people’s art illegally.

Just a quick Internet search using the search term “vintage Christmas” will give you a huge selection of free vintage images from which a lot of craft projects can be made. And, of course, if you don’t like vintage, contemporary Christmas clip art can also be used to produce beautiful projects.

Here are examples of three projects nearly anyone can make by using free art found online:

Christmas Gift Tags
There are actually free holiday gift tags on the Internet but you might find it more fun to make your own. Just download the image or images you want to use and paste them into a table in your word processing program. Make the table two columns by six or eight rows, depending on how tall you want the cards to be. Place your chosen art into every cell (or every other cell if you want to fold them), leaving room to write people’s names. Then, print onto heavy card stock, cut the place cards using a paper cutter or a ruler and craft knife. You can also make holes for string or ribbon in the corners by using a hole punch.

Handmade Christmas Cards
Once you’ve gone online and downloaded the holiday image you would like to use, paste it into a Word, PowerPoint or OneNote document. You can make the card virtually whatever size you want by adjusting the software’s settings. Place the image on one half of the card, so it can be folded in half after it’s printed. Print the card on card stock as heavy as your printer will allow, fold it and and apply just a little glitter glue to make it sparkle. You might also want to make your own envelopes or just buy two-for-a-dollar card and envelope sets at the dollar store and then throw away the cards.

Family Love Christmas Wreath
Crafting Christmas wreath is easy and can even be made when your family gets together for Christmas dinner. Here are the supplies you’ll need to have on-hand:

• 1 plain Styrofoam wreath ring (you choose the size)
• Green construction paper, cut in the shape of holly leaves approximately four inches long
• Christmas clip art or vintage cards of your choice (between 2 and 4 inches long), printed and cut along the outlines
• Scissors
• A box of short straight pins

Have family members and guests jot Christmas messages and the date on the holly leaves. Then, position them in a balanced way around the Styrofoam wreath and affix them with the straight pins. You might need to adjust the leaves to look good. The straight pins will make it easy to reposition the elements. (Just make sure small children don’t get their hands on the pins!) When the leaves are all in position on the wreath, pin clip art among the leaves. The result will be a custom wreath that reflects your family’s love every holiday season for a long time to come.

I hope you enjoy making these simple and fun holiday crafts and that you have a joyful holiday!