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Candy Striped Pencils
Fruity Art
Fizzy Drink Splutter
XXXtra Strong Bubble Mix
Dalek Alert!
Eiffel Eggs
Dye-ing Eggs
Blowing Eggs
Decorating Eggs

Candy Striped Pencils

You can’t get a simpler, more useful gift than a decorated pencil. Kids can make these easily. Use unvarnished natural wood pencils – I found these in Paperchase.

You’ll need:
Thin masking tape, thin electrical tape or similar
Unpainted, unvarnished natural wood pencils
Acrylic paints
Thin paintbrush
Spray or paint-on gloss varnish
Blu-Tack or plasticine


Wind the tape around the pencil to form a twisty, candy-stick pattern. Paint the wood that has been left exposed and leave the pencil to dry vertically by placing it in a lump of Blu-Tack or similar.
When the paint is dry, remove the tape. Paint or spray the pencil with gloss varnish to seal.
You can give each person a lovely pencil, or tie a bunch of pencils together with ribbon. Hang them on the Christmas tree like candy sticks, and hand them out to relatives as they visit – they can pick and choose which pencil they’d like.

See our other homemade Christmas gifts – Honeycomb Rolled Candles Cherry Shortbread Mice and Christmas Star Biscuits.