• Self-made Christmas crackers with confetti, bonbons, and figures

    Making Your Own Christmas Crackers

    A Special Gift Wrap

    These large bonbons, which make a bang when opened and contain small gifts, are called Christmas crackers and originally come from English-speaking regions.

    Christmas crackers are well suited to be used as gifts for a party host, to spruce things up during Carnival or New Year’s Eve, or even as a humorous way to wrap gift vouchers and money.

    Material List for Self-Made Christmas Crackers

    For the Christmas Crackers You’ll Need:

    • Toilet paper rolls, one for each Christmas cracker
    • Gift, crepe, or packing paper
    • Bast fibre or ribbon
    • Ignition strips (or optionally without)
    • Small photos
    • Scissors, glue, tape, and writing implements

     

    And for the Contents:

    • Individually wrapped sweets such as bonbons, gum, or chocolate
    • Deco-confetti, glitter stars, or sequins
    • Dice, game tokens, figures, or other small gifts
    • Slips of paper with messages, poems, and gift vouchers
    • Small photos
    Small photos for decorating the Christmas crackers

    Christmas Cracker Crafting Instructions

    1. Glue the roll

    If you’d like to use ignition strips for the typical popping noise, it’s best to attach these at the beginning to the toilet paper roll to the left and right of the ignition area with adhesive tape. The ends of the cardboard strips should protrude from both ends of the roll.

    Cut out paper sized about 30 x 15 cm for your Christmas cracker and wrap this around the roll. Leave about 10 cm of paper extra on both ends and glue it to the middle of the roll. On one end, you can already bind the paper together with bast fibre or ribbon to create the form of a bonbon.

    The Christmas cracker being filled through the open side

    2. Fill the Christmas cracker

    Through the open side, you can now fill the Christmas cracker with confetti, sweets, figures, slips of paper, and small photos. You can then also bind together the open end with ribbon or bast fibre. Make sure that the ignition strips are securely fastened to both sides.

    3. Decorate

    Now you can glue photos to the Christmas cracker, draw/paint on it, and add other decorations.

    Tip

    Instead of toilet paper rolls, you could also use construction paper. Simply cut out 10 x 20 cm pieces, roll them up, and secure them together with tape.

    When You Don’t Have Much Time

    You could alternatively buy already-made Christmas crackers and then decorate them yourself. The disadvantage here is that the filling won’t be personalised as in the variant described above. However, most of the time, it’s possible to carefully open the Christmas crackers, unfold them, and then place your own filling in them. Some stores also carry Christmas cracker sleeves you can buy and then fill yourself.

    Painted Christmas crackers decorated with photos

    Similar Articles