The holidays can be a stressful time of year for a lot of people. Although many people are on vacation and have some time off during the holidays, it’s not always the most relaxing time. Stress during the holidays can stem from family, friends, finding gifts, holiday traffic, long lines, money…you get the idea.
With all the stress surrounding the holidays, there is a lot of creativity that can go into (or come out of) them as well. You can turn this time of stress into a time of creativity and use exercise your creative mind as a way to come back down from the chaos. Here are some last minute holiday/Christmas art therapy ideas and activities you can expand on to get you started and release some of that stress and anxiety:
- make your own wrapping paper…use old newspapers, magazines, cloth, etc.
- make ornaments from various crafts around the house
- decorate holiday foods such as cookies, pies, etc.
- make a picture or photo frame
- cut out parts of old holiday cards to create a new holiday card or holiday collage
- create mandala art with a Holiday/Christmas theme
- listen to Christmas music for a music-inspired creation
These are just a few ideas to get you started. Feel free to expand on these and add your own creative touch. And if you’d like to share them in the comments, even better! If you can’t think of anything, you can always try one of these stress-reducing iPhone apps.
Art Therapy wishes you and your loved ones a Happy Holidays and a joyous new year! If you’d like to share some of your requests, ideas, or themes for the upcoming year, please leave them in the comments below.
tHANKS FOR ALL THE ART THERAPY INFO THISA YEAR ,, IT HAS BEEN A HELP TO MY STUDIES AND WE WISH YOU A VERY HAPPY CHRISTMAS AND LOOK FORWARD TO MORE INFO NEXT YEAR CHEERS DEBORAH PARKER
I really enjoy ideas for art therapy projects to use at home. Thanks!
Yes, painting Abstracts with Acrylic and making them into Greeting Cards, seems to be a way of giving from the heart.Even creating a Xmas storybook and illustrating each page with some Abstract background with Line drawings in pen and ink, ie The Christmas Carol,’Away in a Manger’, or Once in Royal David’s City’, one could create pictures from some Christmas Carols. Christmas is Worldwide and there are many different ways of expressing Christmas and cellebrating it through the homemade Christmas Cards.This year I painted a forest, covered it with white, to create a snow scene, then painted a Red Robin, using Christmas colours of Red, Green, Yellow, and Blue. After viewing it later, I noticed the image of a child lying near a log, so am going to create a Fairytale picture from this Acrylic Painting that started with just creating an Abstract background. Just choosing four colours, then even if one has no idea what to paint, just move with the colours, and see what happens! It is like loosening The Subconscious onto paper, and most relaxing. Then when one stands back images seem to appear and there it is before you, to paint.I painted a Subconscious Painting a few weeks ago and then a snowscene developed with a Chirpy Red Robin. It turned out like a Nursery Rhyme.I am going to paint a few more pictures with this nymph and the Robin Redbreast.Don’t know where the image came from, but this is the Imagination at work through Abstract! I call this Art Therapy,and now am going ahead with making some Christmas Cards.From one painting many gifts can be made, like Xmas decorations, Posters, Lanterns, Christmas Cards, and Jigsaw Puzzles.Merry Xmas to you all, and painting fun to all of you who enjoy Art! Angela Harrison
Another art therapy holiday idea I do with my kids is trace cookie cutters then fill with zentangles. They look cool on colored paper. Then my kids cut them out and paste onto folded white paper to make their own cards.
These are all great ideas! I love to create things with Christmas cards too…there’s a great link on the Better Homes and Gardens website for recycled cards ideas: http://www.bhg.com/christmas/crafts/christmas-card-projects/. I really like being able to look at the old cards I have gotten and reflect upon who sent them to me and the sentiments they wrote.
Other things I have done: Created an Advent journal where every day I wrote a reflection of the season and had some kind of picture or art accopanying it. Also, displaying my Christmas village and decorating my dolls for Christmas always sparks my imagination and is stress reliever!
wow, these art ideas for the holidays are really helpful in reducing stress! well, I think that recycling and art can come together well enough to create simple masterpieces. art therapy is indeed like online psychotherapy, only done with scissors and colored papers. 😉
This year I found photos that I had taken that I thought would be meaningful to specific people. I paired them with quotes (from Rumi), and put them in inexpensive frames, matted on scrapbooking paper. I really enjoyed making them, and hadn’t thought about til now that it was therapeutic as well. Thanks!
I am making friendship bracelets and giving them away as a way to honor my daughter who passed away last year. She was always so creative in many different areas and used art to help her through the rough times. She also made friendship bracelets and necklaces and gave them away. Now that I am making them I can understand how the process of the making and the giving is healing. Skye’s the Limit! (Her name is Skye and she would sign her name as “Skye’s the Limit” on some of her creations.)