Paper Crafts for Children

This is a beautiful snowflake that would look lovely on the tree or as a seasonal garland. The children could just decorate it with painted patterns as well.

You will need 3 large Popsicle sticks – tongue depressor size and 6 standard Popsicles, white craft glue or wood glue, paint, and paper decorations if you want them.

Spend time arranging the sticks in the pattern shown in the photos. I did mine on a piece of white paper so I could make marks on it to show me where each piece went once I was happy with my placement.

Glue the two sizes of sticks together separately and then glue the large ones on top of the smaller ones.

Paint the snowflake all over.

Make some paper decorations. These ones are punched out from white paper – I didn’t have a snowflake shape so used a daisy one which worked just as well.

Coat the paper shapes in glue and then lay it glue side down in a bed of glitter. Press gently with your finger to ensure the glitter covers the whole shape. Leave to dry and then glue in place on the wooden snowflake.

I wonder if you can tell I was thinking about Christmas crafts whilst baking when this idea popped into my head?

This would also be good as a class or other children’s group craft activity. Each child could decorate their own cup cake case for the group wreath. Or as a teacher led decoration for the group – each child’s photo could be glued into a cup cake case to make the wreath.

You will need some cup cake, or patty cake papers for the main part of this craft. This one uses mini ones, but you could also do it with a mixture of sizes. The basis of the wreath is a circle of card – just cut from a packing box and painted white.

There are lot of ways you could decorate the cup cake papers for the wreath, this one uses a few different methods.

To decorate the cup cake papers, dip the edges into the white craft glue and then into the glitter and set aside to dry. Then I rolled chenille sticks into spirals and glued them in the cases. I drew stars on paper with glitter glue and glued them in the bottom of the cases and also glued some glitter pom poms in them as well.

Glue the patty papers onto the wreath. I started with the inside circle first, then the outside circle and then filled in the center.

This is a really simple craft for little hands and best of all they stand up on their own.

Make a whole herd adding a different accent to each instead of holly – a bell, scarf etc.

You will need 3 wooden pegs – flat sided rather than round, white craft or wood glue, some paint and decorations like googly eyes, pompoms and paper.

Glue two of the pegs together and then the third upside down lining up the tops as best you can.

When it is dry, paint the three pegs brown. Glue the eyes and nose on. Cut holly shapes from the green paper and glue in place.

Pippi Pipecleaners and I have been ever so busy working on the next newsletter - and not all the creations would fit, so this wee fella got left out in the snow! But he does not mind – he understands that as cute as he is, he is not really a paper craft.

However he does have two bits of card on him, and that whole cuteness factor – so I am letting him hoot out a hello to everyone calling in on the website.

You will need a pine-cone that has opened, some white and black card, and cotton wool. Also some glue to bring him together, as well as a gluestick you will also need a stronger glue like a glue-gun or thick craft glue.

Have a look at your pine-cone and decide which side you want for the front.

Pull pieces from the cotton wool and using a stick, push the cotton wool between the gaps in the pine-cone. Try not to cover the seedpods completely as you want them to add texture to the body of the owl.

Cut a heart shape from the white card that fits your cone. This will become the face of the owl.

Cut two circles from the black card for the eyes and glue on the heart shape. We also added a couple of googly eyes but you could use some white paper to make eyes as well.

Cover the rest of the heart shape with glue. Glue the cotton wool to the face making sure the black eyes are not covered.

Using a glue-gun, apply a liberal amount of glue to the cone and press the face into place. Hold until the glue dries.

Cut a rough foot shape for the bottom of the owl. This will allow your finished owl to stand up. Flatten the bottom of the owl as well as you can by folding out the seedpods. Apply a generous amount of glue using the glue-gun and press the ‘foot’ into place. Hold until dry.

Cover the foot with more cotton wool glued on.

Can you imagine a family of these as a decoration? I can and think that would be a great gift for children to make a teacher.

This was supposed to be a Christmas craft but I was a bit late getting it ready – then I thought that you may have some extra magazines from holiday reading that need to be used, well this is the craft for that!

Use a magazine with a bound spine rather than a flimsy stapled one.

Open the magazine to the first page. Take the top right hand corner and bring it to the centre and fold. This should be tucked as far into the spine as possible.

Tuck the folded edge into the center spine and make another fold.

Fold the triangle section up so the fold lines up with the bottom edge of the page.

Fold the rest of the pages in the same way.

Carefully fold the front and back covers to match the rest and then glue them together.

Have I got time to sneak one more craft in before Christmas? I think so – let’s try this one!

This is a lovely wee tree that uses crepe paper twist chains to decorate it.

What you will need
1 US letter or A4 sheet of card
Crepe paper in the colour of your choice
Glue stick
Scissors
Pencil

Trace around a dinner plate and fold to make a half circle. Cut out with the scissors and fold over to create a cone shape. Glue to secure.

Cut a strip from the end of the folded crepe paper.

Unroll and using your thumb and forefinger, twist twice to secure. Repeat along the length of crepe paper using your thumb as a guide to get a uniform size.

Cover the cone shape with glue from the glue stick and then attach the crepe paper chain starting at the top of the tree and spiralling down. Repeat with the other colours of crepe paper.

This tree looks good as it is but you could add some glitter shapes, pompoms or whatever you fancy.