• Painted flower pots work well as craft gifts.planting and potting image by Ray Kasprzak from Fotolia.com
  
  Kids often enjoy making decorative crafts. Use craft gift ideas to teach children how to create useful, inexpensive presents for their friends and loved ones. Choose craft ideas for the garden or home. Parents and grandparents often treasure such homemade gifts, and display them even after the child is grown.
  
  

Decorative Flower Pot

• Create a decorative flower pot with acrylics, stencils and templates. Fill the flower pot with a blooming plant or herbs as part of the gift. Change the background color of a terra cotta flower pot with acrylic paint; select such bright colors as yellow or blue to offset the plant's greenery. After the background color dries, kids can paint flowers, hummingbirds, bumblebees, birdhouses and garden-related décor on the flower pot. Select stencils and templates from the craft store to fit your flower pot's theme. Spray a coat of exterior-grade polyurethane over the painted pot to protect the images and add a glossy sheen.
  
  

Flower Pot Wind Chimes

• Turn a flower pot upside down. Decorate it with acrylics. The drainage hole in the center of the pot will serve as the opening for the wind chime hanger. Wrap a strand of 20-gauge craft wire around a 3- to 4-inch dowel rod. Feed the wire through the drainage hole to make a hanger loop. Make the wind chimes from such small objects as craft bells, crystal prisms, old utensils or beaded strands. Tie fishing line to the dowel rod. Hang the small objects from the fishing line.
  
  

Beaded Sun Catcher

• Teach kids how to make a beaded sun catcher. Use metal craft rings in a variety of shapes and sizes for the sun catcher's perimeter. String 4mm glass beads onto strands of fishing line that fit from the top of the craft ring to the bottom. Tie the strands vertically in rows--they should be side by side along the inside of the craft ring. Fill the craft ring with beaded strands to create your sun catcher. Tie fishing line to the top of the sun catcher. Use a suction cup hook to hang the craft from a window.