Paper Crafts

These are lots of fun! If you have not done this paper craft with your children before, this Saint Patrick’s Day craft is a great excuse.

I don’t know what they are called, but I love this idea to use them for Saint Patrick’s Day as a lucky four leaf clover.

Start with a square piece of paper.

Fold it in half and open it out.

Fold it in half again the other way and open it out again.

Fold the corners in to the corners into the center.

Turn it over.

Fold the corners into the center again.

Fold it in half.

Carefully pull out the corners with your fingers pushed into the fold.

Use your fingers to open and shut the center.

Write some words to read around on the outside.

Write some numbers on the center.

And of course, write something on the inside flaps that you open out.

We have written lots of ‘lucky’ things just for Saint Patrick’s Day.

To play it, someone chooses a word which the holder of the ‘clover’ spells out as they open and close the ‘clover’, alternating which center numbers they display. Then the chooser selects a number which is counted out as the holder of the ‘clover’ again opens and closes the ‘clover’. Then finally a number is chosen again and this time the flap is opened and the ‘luck’ is read out.

I thought this was quite a fun craft for children, to fit in with St Patrick’s day – decorating paper with potato prints.

Cut your potato in half making the cut surface as flat as possible, this will give a much better print surface.

A nifty way to get a nice shape cut into the potato is to use a cookie cutter shape to press into the potato and then use a knife to cut the potato away up to the edge of the cookie cutter.

Then when you lift the cookie cutter shape away you will have a nice shape ready to start printing with.

To get the paint onto the printing surface of the potato, you can either paint it on with a brush, or spread the paint onto a tray and stamp into the tray and then on the paper.

A crafty friend told me about the fun she had with this as a child and shared with me how to do it …

“This trick gave me endless entertainment when I was a child. Nearly every child at my school had their ‘cut off’ finger in a match box and even though we were all knew how the trick worked, there was still something pleasingly revolting about looking in the match box. ”

What you will need
1 empty match box
Scissors
Cotton wool
Red food coloring

Slide the box out of the cover and cut away the sections as shown.

Lay a piece of cotton wool (you could use a folded tissue instead) in the bottom of the box.

Dribble some red food coloring onto the cotton wool about half way down the length of the box. Slide the box back into the cover.

To play the trick, put you index finger into the hole in the bottom and practice holding the box with your thumb and middle finger so it looks natural. Tell your friends that you cut your finger off and ask them if they want to see it. Slide the box open and there your finger will lay looking lifeless on a blood soaked bed of cotton wool!

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.