DIY Christmas Crackers!

This Christmas will be the first year that we will making our own Christmas Crackers!  I am soo excited!  I hope that this will be a family tradition that will continue for years to come!

I found this site very helpful. I do believe this is where the cracker snaps were ordered from as well (I am not entirely certain as they were a gift from a friend!).  I was inspired to make our own cracker this year, after watching this the program.  I just love idea of making things like this for your family, to add a bit of cheer!  

I filled our crackers with chocolates, Werther's caramels.












Christmas riddles that I printed.

And a small handmade ornaments.  I decided to not make the "traditional" tissue paper crown.. only because no one really wears them!  So I substituted for a small homemade ornament.

For the Christmas ornaments I decided on a snowman button ornament which I found here.

I also made a twine star.  For this I basically cut out a star shape out of card stock and covered it with twine using hot glue.  And finally strung some beads and buttons that we had on hand.

The only labor intensive part of this project was the ornaments.  They weren't difficult, but just took some time to make.  You could chose to just pick up a small toy from the dollar store or just substitute for something else small and fun.  The way I made this decision... is like this: what would I like to be surprised with in a cracker!  I decided to keep the look of them very simple, I used craft paper and a dollie.. you an use any type of paper you'd like.

Hope this inspires you to add a little bit of fun at your Christmas dinner!  Your guests will surely be surprised!