My little brood wanted to make some waldorf style window stars at Christmas-time and it led to us doing a lot of crafting with with waxed kite paper.

For years I have got frustrated with tissue paper. It looks so full of promise when you buy a pack – with a rainbow of different colours to choose from. But then you get it out and your kids start using it. It rips easily, but is difficult to cut neatly. As soon as it comes into contact with glue it seems to stick itself to anything, except the thing that you want it to stick to! Then it gets packed away and very soon you find that it’s a crumpled mess, which is very little use for anything. At least, that’s what happens in our house!

So it was a revelation when our neat little pack of waxed kite paper arrived with the same beautiful bright colours and transparency, but easy access and tear off sheets.

You can say what you like about social media, but it is a great place for getting inspiration when you’re running low on ideas. We had just move into our new home, shortly before Christmas. I was exhausted after months of doing up our old house, the whole selling and buying process and the huge relocation thrown into the mix. So I wasn’t at my best creatively, but I wanted our kids first Christmas here to be magical and full of happy memories.

We didn’t have any furniture at that point, except for a long desk (that became our kitchen table/learning and crafting table) and some dining chairs. But that wasn’t going to stop us making lots of decorations. The idea of waldorf window stars appealed to us, because we wanted to make the most of the few hours of daylight that you get in Orkney in the winter.

We settled on a simple design for our first try and in a short time our windows were full of them. Catching the low sunlight perfectly and brightening up our rather sparse (at that point) interior, they were just what we needed.

The kite paper had been so easy to work with, that we decided to use it for some other craft projects. Midwinter Solstice was fast approaching and my little tribe wanted to have their own short lantern parade around the garden, in celebration. So we took some empty jam jars, covered them in pva glue and used the kite paper to create colourful designs. This turned out to be one of those craft projects that works well for kids of all ages and abilities, my favourite sort!

We kept them burning in the window after the parade and they stayed there for the rest of the festive season.

Our kite paper fun didn’t end there. We had birthday celebrations just around the corner and it was a family tradition to make a special display for these. With two of the children’s birthdays just a couple of days apart and very close to Christmas and New Year, we always make a special effort to make each day different, with fresh decorations and activities. After all, the days that our children were born, along with the day that we got married, are the most important days of our lives.

One of my favourite things about our house, is it’s deep set windows. I thought that one of these would be the perfect place to create our birthday displays. The kite paper had made the house look so jolly over Christmas, so we hatched a plan to create some pictures for each special day.

They were incredibly easy to make and if you would like to make some all you will need is some tracing paper, a pack of kite paper and a glue stick. You can either cut the paper carefully in the desired shapes, or as we did for the sun and rainbow below, you can just tear the paper into small pieces and create your image with those.

Stick all of your kite paper pieces to the tracing paper and then cut out around the design. Hey presto! You’re done.

We attached ours to the window with tape, but I learnt recently (from a post by Myriad Natural Toys) that you can stick them to the window with a little bit of glue stick. Apparently it will clean up perfectly afterwards. I haven’t tried this myself yet, but definitely will next time.

Everybody loved the displays and it has become our new tradition. In fact we like them so much that pictures from all of the birthdays that we’ve had since, are still up on windows around the house. I guess at some point that we’re going to run out of space! And we have to be careful not to block the views, because we are blessed with beautiful views from every window.

We’ve nearly run out of kite paper now, but I will be ordering more and I am sure we’ll find even more things to do with it. If you do a lot of crafting with your kids, I would recommend getting some for your stash. It’s always good to find something that’s versatile, keeps everyone entertained and is also inexpensive.

Happy crafting xx