Hi Barb, I have a couple of ideas you might consider -

1 - little reindeer clothspin ornaments. Made these sometime ago for my Cub Scout troop and they loved them, so did their Moms when they brought them home - you need three wooden clothes pins - how do I explain - not the pinch/spring kind, not the ones with the rounded head, the ones that are flat wood legs and have the squarish head. Glue two of them together to make the legs, make sure the legs are facing the right way. Take the third clothes pin and turn it upside down (so the legs are facing upwards) and glue it to the (side of) one head of the two glued together. Make sure one flat side of the pin is facing forward. Then use small roll(ie) eyes and a tiny red pom pom for the nose. Next cut from holiday green felt - a small holly leaf, and from bright red felt, about three small cirle berries. Glue the holly leaft to the "head" clothes pin just above the eyes (where the legs come together) and then glue the three red berries onto the holly leaf. Let dry and hang on Xmas tree branches as you would hanging clothes.

2 - check out the marthastewartliving.com (mag) site. In the craft section there are tons of ornaments/decorations to make. One in particular is homemade snow globes using baby food jars or a mayo jar. They are so cute.

3. Find pinecones and/or buy some. Buy large red pip berry garland or red pip berry wreaths and using wire cutters, cut off the individual little branches of berries, cut close to the center vine. Wrap the pinecone by intertwining a pip berry cut piece in and out of the spaces of the pinecone. Turn it upside down and using floral wire, wrap a piece of wire around (the bottom) part of the pinecone, which has now become the top, to make the wire for hanging on the tree or other uses. Hot glue some greenery to the top of the pinecone and maybe some more pulled off pip berries or a little faux bird (red cardinal or whatever you have) and Viola, you have a cute little pinecone decoration for your tree.

4 - Make little snowballs out of strofoam balls - about 1" balls or larger. Cover them with joint compound, stick a long piece of floral wire in it for the hanger and also to use to hang up to dry overnight. Spray them using spray adhesive and sprinkle or roll them in glitter dust or mica glitter, again, hang up to dry. Tie a piece of holiday ribbon around the wire near the ball. Use larger balls if only give one to each preschooler.

5 - Buy little three/four inch tall peat moss plant starters at a garden shop or someplace like Farm & Country Supply store. Paint them red or green using a foam paint brush, let dry. Hot glue on some holly leaves and berries (as stated above) and fill with faux greenery and some red pip berries (as stated above, cut from a garland or wreath). Use as a shelf sitter or other place, coffee table, on the TV, etc. and/or punch a hole in each side and put floral wire in and attach to each side by twisting it and hang on the tree.

Hope these helped you. I'm sure you can find some good supplies at Walmart or Kmart. Some places like Michael's and Joann's have holiday decorations already on sale. I'd sure like to see pics of what you finally made - please share pics.

Sal