The Best Cracker Filler Ideas for Kids
Cracker Fillers for Kids
Are you making your own crackers for kids? Are you looking for inspiration on gift ideas to put in them, or a bit flummoxed on which fillers to add? Are you trying to avoid just adding sweets or plastic toys, which won’t see the light of day again, after the cracker is pulled?
If so, you are definitely in the right place, where we have a huge selection of cracker filler gifts for kids. These are offered as either a selection for boys or for girls, to help you browse easily.
These cracker filler gifts also make fabulous advent calendar gifts, stocking fillers and party bag favours too – there are so many times that we are looking for little gifts for kids, not just when making and filling our own crackers.
We have something for all ages and interests, which are ever changing to be bring you a mix of both traditional and current cracker gifts, all in one place.
Below, we have grouped together the most popular cracker fillers (that we consider to be the best cracker fillers for kids), together with some new ideas for 2026. We this hope will give you some inspiration when filling crackers that you are making for kids.
Expanding flannels cracker fillers
Flannels, which expand when placed in water, may have been around for decades but they are currently enjoying a resurgence in popularity, with new fun and modern designs. We can guarantee you that you will not find a bigger range of expanding flannels anywhere else...
The expanding flannels, which are also called either compressed flannels or magic flannels, are unwrapped and then added to a bowl of water, run under the tap or added to a bath. They start at around 5 to 6 cm wide and approximately 2 cm deep, expanding normally to a full size to 30 cm square flannel. It’s magic, perhaps!
Our most popular version of these is always our 3D football magic flannel, which starts as the 3D shape of a football, expanding to a normal flannel. We know that these are actually also used for adult football lovers as well as kids, as they make a great addition to any football training bag.
Whether you’re looking for cute animals, Pusheen the Cat, Paddington Bear, unicorns or dinosaurs, you will find all of these and many more designs within our expanding flannels shop.
Marbles for kids crackers
We have a great range of marbles for kids, including our new mini marble boxes, in designs for both boys and girls – yes, we know that girls like marbles too…
Each themed mini box is designed to fit within our standard crackers and larger, with the marbles coordinating with the box design. Alongside six standard marbles, a large shooter marble is also included.
These are great as will be able to play them after pulling their crackers but also be able to store them and play them later, time and time again.
Cracker filler toys
When people talk about toys for crackers, everybody’s mind immediately jumps to the plastic tat that we all had in crackers as kids. Do we really have a need for plastic lips, which don’t even open, or a plastic moustache that hangs from our nose?
Today, the world has moved on, with so many people avoiding single use plastics. Our cracker filler toys have moved along too.
We have a great choice of traditional wooden toys, together with metal toys. Any plastic toys that we do sell, are not single use and will have an extended play value, hopefully being passed to younger siblings and other relatives.
Toy cars, yo-yos, spinning tops, puzzles and card games all feature amongst our collection of both traditional and modern cracker filler toys.
Wind up, pull back & push up cracker toys
We have an ever-increasing range of toys which wind up, pull back and push up, as these appeal to the adults buying them and the kids being gifted them!
What child doesn’t love a toy, which has some movable parts, adding to the fun of pulling Christmas crackers.
Wind up Christmas characters, little trains, push-up animals and pull back cars will always be popular with kids, young and fully grown alike!
Stationery for kids crackers
Do you have kids who love colouring or drawing? If so, we have a great choice of pencil crayon pots, highlighter pens and erasers for kids, together with multicolour pens and pencil sharpeners in our stationery collection.
Kids will not only love receiving the colourful stationery based cracker gifts, but will equally enjoy using them later. Stationary items for kids, and adults too, really are a great idea to include within your crackers and are fabulous step away from kids plastic cracker fillers.
Badges for kids
Our range of fun badges for kids is ideal for Christmas crackers and party crackers. Don’t all children love badges?
All supplied on a coordinating backing card and all fitting inside both our standard and large crackers.
For Christmas you could choose from our huge selection, which includes “Santa’s favourite”, “I hate sprouts”, “I love Rudolph” and “Santa’s little helper”.
Perhaps one of our fun kids designs would be ideal? Popular kids themes and Christmas designs always go down well.
Hair accessories for girls
Girls love hair accessories, no matter how long or short they have their hair… What a great idea to add to Christmas crackers.
Sleepy clips, mini scrunchies, hair elastics and hair clips will always prove popular with girls and they often use them immediately – even tossing their paper crown aside!
