Christmas is coming, and it’s time for December’s Mini-Masterpieces link-up. I’m sure many of you have already been getting into the Christmas spirit with lots of seasonal creative projects already, so don’t be shy – link-them up and inspire us all!  I’ll be sharing some of our projects over the next week or two – I’ve got loads lined up, but I’m not sure how many we’ll actually manage to do!

My boys have also recently returned from school with some artwork which you can have made into printed Christmas cards. I have mixed feelings about this. Of course it’s a nice little earner for the school, and I’m sure many parents appreciate the opportunity to easily and painlessly get a few personalised cards made.  However I don’t usually order any myself, because I much prefer to make our own, and if I did want to print some, I’d either do my own, or use the services of a site like Zazzle so that I could choose the artwork I wanted.  Also I have noticed that there is a tendency for the school to give the children a ‘formula’ to follow. This means that each child’s artwork, while looking very presentable, looks exactly like that produced by every other member  of the class. Personally I’d prefer it if the children were allowed to be more creative and encouraged to use their imagination to produce a Christmas picture of their own.

I always like to share some of my own children’s artwork for these posts,so this time I’m sharing a favourite piece of Christmas snowscene artwork that my elder son did last year, and which I have to say I am quite tempted to have printed as a card!

 There are no rules for this linky – you can share old or new artwork as you wish, and you don’t have to post a link back if you don’t want to.

As ever, if you have a Flickr account, don’t forget that you can also share your children’s artwork  via the Artful Kids Flickr Group – which is intended to showcase art by children under 12 years old.