Paper Crafts

Some of my favorite cards for children to craft for Mothers Day and of course Grandmothers Day too.

	Secret Message Card This very clever card is much easier to make than it looks – have a go!
	Seeded Paper for Gift Cards A perfect card and gift combo paper craft.
	Accordion Pop-up Card The front of this card says ‘Thanks …’ and when it opens a whole bunch of flowers pop up and the message is ‘… a bunch’. Much easier to make than it looks.
	Concertina Gift Card What I love about this one is that it combines a card with a gift – and the gift can be little promise notes or special messages. Did I mention that this is also easier than it looks??
	Pop-up Garland Card This card combines two very easy techniques, a simple pop-up card and a paper garland. The flowers from the garland are used on the inside of the card as pictures here, and also on the front of the card and an envelope.
	Mothers Day Tea Bag Card Open up the tea pot and inside is a tea bag and a poem to go with it specially for Mothers Day.
	Easy Pop-up Card Just like the others in this list, this is a great card craft for children to learn. The pop-up section is a separate piece that is glued on.

Handmade paper is a great paper craft for children, this one has something extra to turn it into a great gift for someone special like a Mother for Mothers Day, she can plant your paper and grow a bunch of flowers.

Usually when you make paper you need some special equipment, it is not too hard to organise, but you can also make small amounts of paper without it which we have done here. These specially shaped bits of paper have some seeds added to them while the pulp was still wet.

	Tear some paper into little strips. You can use any paper or card as long as it is not coated in plastic. We have used mostly red and pink paper and we ended up with a beautiful pink paper.
	Add water and leave to soak at least overnight. You can mix it with a beater – or you can mix it with a child playing in the lovely pulpy mix.
	Layer up some towels and use cookie cutters to make your paper shapes. Scoop the pulp into the shapes and smooth it out. Add seeds if you wish and add a little more pulp to hold them.
	Remove the cookie cutters and the use another towel to press and squeeze some moistures out of the paper shapes. This also flattens them out. Once they are dry, you can write some seed planting instructions on them before giving it to someone, or use it as a gift tag.

I was looking around for some fun card making techniques suitable for children and this one intrigued me. It looked very confusing and complicated but if you follow the steps it really does work – the secret of how it works is in the weaving.

This post must have the most photos of any that I have done! I am not going to check them all to make sure, but it sure feels like a lot – but for good reason – they will help make it really easy to follow the steps and understand how it works. All the techniques used are nice and simple, but the final card is a bit like magic – a very cool paper craft for children.

Start with two pieces of photocopy size paper in two different colors. Fold one piece of paper with three folds into a concertina as pictured here.

Cut slots along the center fold, the cut should go to the next fold, we did four cuts.

They were not measured or evenly spaced but if you like to be accurate you could measure before cutting.

Cut two strips of paper from the other piece of paper. The strips of paper should be the same width as one of the folded sections on the first piece, so that is quarter of the width. Weave the paper strips in and out of the slots.

Fold the card together.

You will be able to carefully pull the card apart along the center fold – the woven strips and slots enable it to be opened along the center fold.

It looks as though it is solid, but it really does open. But you may just have to do it to see what happens!

It opens all the way and hides the part that was open before.

Cut out some tabs and attach them to the part of the card that does not have any weaving.

This will help the recipient work out how to open the card – you can also write ‘pull’ on them to be extra helpful.

Open the card along the center fold again.

Write the first part of your message.

Open the card out and write the hidden part of the message.

This is a lovely craft to make for your parent, grandparent or teacher to let them know how much you love and appreciate them. It can also be adapted to be a thank you jar for a friend, a memories jar for a baby as it grows or even a jar with jokes or words of wisdom written on the strips of paper. I love this type of gift because it gives you the opportunity to say all the things you would like the special recipient to know but don’t always get the chance to say. Best of all, it is fun and easy to make too.

To make this gift you need a glass jar with a lid, some glue, colored paper, pen or marker, ribbon, scissors and letters to spell out your label. Our jar is labeled with ”I Love You Mum”.
Stick the letters that spell out your label on the outside of the jar. These letters have been cut from an old magazine but you could use alphabet stickers instead.

Cut the colored paper into narrow strips, wide enough to write a message on. Write your special messages on the strips of paper. For example, finish the line “I Love You Mum” on the outside of the jar by writing on the strip “… because you make me yummy dinners” or “… because you give me the best cuddles”.

Roll the strips around the pencil so they curl and then pop inside the jar. Do as many strips as it take to fill the jar. Put the lid on and tie the ribbon over the lid. If you don’t have a jar with a lid you can place a piece of fabric over the top and tie it with a ribbon instead.

The cards my gorgeous children designed and made for me!

Their was much closed doors and secret creating going on in the lead up to Mothers Day at our house. I was banned from certain areas of the house as the children made and hid cards. On the day itself I waited in bed for my breakfast and a pile of absolutely fabulous cards.

My daughter had made a couple of cards, one using our favorite pop-up card technique – she designed it and made it all on her own. Note the comment at the bottom about my hair!! Glad to report I safely at my bacon and eggs without any of it getting in my hair.

The other card she made is a three fold card and decorated with gel pens, it really sparkles a lot which does not show up in the photo – heaps of work in it.

My son made a card at school tracing some lettering and shading it, but the inside of the card held a real treat – he had written a poem especially for the occasion …
The sunlight filters through
The blowing curtains blue
It drives open your weary eyes
You get up to see the sunrise
You check the clock its five past one (it was the only thing that rhymed with begun)
Meaning that mothers day has begun.

I love it, and the comment about what rhymed with begun was on the card too and we all had a good laugh about it.

Finally they had taken a concertina gift card I had made and added clues to where I could find some presents. I had to work out the code and then I could go on a present hunt. My presents were lots of fun, they had been to the supermarket and chosen things they thought I would like. Some interesting choices … curry mix, beef jerky, white chocolate, gherkins, anchovy stuffed olives, and feijoa tea!

We had a great day with lots of fun and laughter and I did not have to cook a single thing all day. Thanks to my family for a lovely day.

Pop-up section is a separate piece that has tabs and is glued on – nice and easy!

This pop-up card is a great craft for children to learn, it can be adapted to all sorts of themes. I love cards with flowers as they can be used for most occasions – and, well, when I am not crafting I love to garden!

The bits and pieces you need are lightweight card to make the basic card, and smaller bits of paper to create the pop-up and the flowers. The easy way to work out how to make the pop-up section is to make the width of the paper used a little bit smaller than the width of the card. Fold the paper in half and then fold each side in half again, all folds going the same way so you end up with a square shape. The two sides on the edges will be the tabs that are glued to the card.

Before gluing the tabs down, assemble the flowers and glue some of them to the inside of the pop-up section and some onto the card behind where the pop will go. You can just glue them all on the pop-up section. Make sure that the ones on the pop-up section stick straight up so that when the card is closed they do not get bent. A really simple way to make a flower for the cover of the card is to use layered shapes, I detail how to do this at Shapes Flower Picture.

Once I started making Mothers Day cards that children can make, I could not stop! The others I have made are listed – Mothers Day Cards