This time of year, it’s always fun to make easy Christmas crafts with paper. There are a variety of things you can do with paper that make the holiday seem extra festive. Plus, I always feel that when you make something by hand – it just makes the season more meaningful. Less commercialism = true meaning of Christmas. Am I right?

Way back, long ago, when I was in college, I didn’t have enough money to buy proper Christmas ornaments. I had maybe 6 real Christmas ornaments. Let me tell you, limited funds is the mother of invention. Nothing spurs creativity like not being able to run out to the store to buy what your want or need. So, I decided to make origami tree ornaments.

Specifically, the crane which is shown above. After making about 25 of these ornaments, my fingers were sore and I could could fold a piece of paper into a crane in my sleep. How I wish Pinterest had been around when I was in college! There were SO many other paper crafts that were more practical that would have created better results. My final takeaway from this endeavor was that 25 paper cranes wasn’t nearly enough to fill up a tree- even when I added my 6 real ornaments.

Since today’s post is about EASY Christmas crafts with paper, I will spare you the details of how to fold an origami crane. Instead, let’s focus on some paper crafts that yield big results with minimal effort.

Here is a round up of three easy Christmas crafts with paper. These crafts are also great for kids.

Large Paper Christmas Stars

This site HERE talks about how to make these Christmas stars just using paper lunch bags. Yes. You read that correctly – paper lunch bags. In addition you will need some glue (hot glue gun) and an xacto knife/box cutter or scissors.

As an added twist, you can buy colored lunch bags – for example white paper lunch bags- to get different colored stars. I decided to spray paint the brown paper bags gold so stars had some extra bling. See the small star in the center of the larger star? That’s what we are going to discuss next.

Small Paper Christmas Stars

Finnish stars are another easy Christmas craft with paper. You can read detailed instructions on how to make them HERE. These stars are generally smaller in size and can be used as tree ornaments. They also make a great garland if you make a number of them at one time. It’s fun to use unique paper to make these stars. For example, old wrapping paper, sheet music, old letters, or old prints.

Paper Chains for Christmas

When I was a little girl, in school we would always make these paper chains out of construction paper. Then every day closer to Christmas, one paper ring would be torn off. It was an advent calendar of sorts – used to count down the days until Christmas.

Paper chains are endlessly useful while being easy to make. You can use them on your Christmas tree, on your mantel or simply to adorn a window.

For the paper chains shown above, I used old sheet music which I cut into strips and secured into loops with a glue gun. You can use old wrapping paper, pages from old books, scrapbook paper, or old wallpaper to create these paper chains. It’s a fun and easy way to be creative by using what you have readily available in your home.

If you have children, it’s fun to make these chains using 24 paper loops so that they can tear off a loop each day we are closer to Christmas. Some people put these paper chains at the foot of their children’s beds.

Thanks for stopping by the blog today. I hope you are inspired to create a handmade Christmas in your home.