Art Lesson Plan: Christmas Potpourri Hangers

This is a beautiful, useful Christmas craft.  Although this activity needs adult help for gluing, I have safely done this activity with grades 1 and 2.  We collect clean metal lids and bits of ribbon and lace to reuse.  Students trace, measure, cut and print message.  It’s great to see students get excited about reusing and being able to make a useful gift from reused materials.

Objectives:

1. reusing clean metal lids
2. reusing bits of ribbon and lace
3. creating something useful from reused materials
4. measuring lace edging to fit
5. tracing lid on paper and lace material

Materials:

1. used clean metal lids
2. metal pop tab or leftover bits of ribbon, as small as 4 inches, for hanging loop
3. leftover bits of lace material cut in circles to cover lid
4. leftover bits of lace edging to decorate edges of lid, or paper frame
5. potpourri (make your own: dry orange peels until brittle, break into small pieces and use, adding whole cloves and broken cinnamon sticks)
6. scissors
7. pencils
8. fine tip black markers or pens
9. scraps of white paper
10. white glue
11. wooden popsicle sticks
12. glue gun and glue sticks

Method:

1. Show students how to trace around lid on paper and on lace material.
2. Cut out paper circle and glue to top of lid.
3. Cut out lace circle.  Put aside.
4. Measure lace edging around lid.  Cut to fit.  Put aside.
5. Glue paper on top of lid with white glue.
6. Fill clean used lid with potpourri.
7. Cover potpourri with lace circle.
8. Cut ribbon to make hanging loop.
9. Take ribbon, lace edging and lace covered potpourri to adult with glue gun.
10. Adult glues on ribbon or pop top hanging loop, then lace circle over potpourri, and lastly glues lace edging on.  Press down with wooden popsicle stick for a few seconds to dry.
11. Student takes Christmas Potpourri Hanger back to their desk and writes note on the paper on the back of the hanger, lightly in pencil.  “Merry Christmas Mom (or Dad), Love Brandon”.  Done in pencil first to make sure they can fit it all on the lid.  They may have to erase it the first time and print smaller.
12. Once they’ve checked their spelling (write sayings on board), they can trace it in marker or pen.

Tags: christmas, measuring, reusing, tracing