Paper Crafts for Children

Crepe paper is great, it is light and floaty, stretchy and textured and lends it self to all sorts of crafts … including the tentacles of a jellyfish.

A crafty friend came up with this simple and cheerful design. Not too messy either and would be great to hang for an ocean themed party.

Take a sheet of newspaper and scrunch into a ball several times to make the paper soft and pliable. Make a ball the size you want your jellyfish’s head to be.

Place two layers of crepe paper on a flat surface. The size of the piece of crepe will depend on how big your ball of newspaper is. Make sure to leave lots of overhang to make the tentacles.

Gather the crepe up and around the ball of newspaper and fasten with a chenille stick. Cut off the excess chenille stick and tuck the ends away.

Cut strips in the crepe paper to make the tentacles. It doesn’t matter that they are different lengths or widths but you don’t want them to be too narrow that they tear easily.

Cut the base for the eyes out of some card. Cut out the white for the eyes a little smaller than the base and then draw in the pupils with the black marker. Glue to the card.

Glue eyes to the head of the Jellyfish, and then because he is so cute and ever so easy make another!

We have made something similar a while ago … a super quick Paper Towel Ghost

Let your imagination run wild with this technique. You can make random patterns or mosaic pictures using this technique and it is lots of fun.

What you will need;
Crepe paper in different colors
Sheets of printer paper
Spray bottle of water
Tray

Lay a sheet of paper on the tray. Place the pieces of crepe paper in the pattern you wish.

Spray liberally with water. The more water you spray on the crepe paper the more intense the color transferred. Do not be afraid of getting the paper quite wet.

Lay another sheet of printer paper over the wet crepe paper and put another layer of crepe paper. Continue with as many layers as you wish making sure you spray water over each layer. It is a bit like making a lasagna and it means you will have paper dyed on both sides.

Press down to make sure the water penetrates and leave for 10 minutes. Remove layers and hang each sheet to dry.

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.

This festive craft is not just a great paper craft for children – it is an any age party decoration. You need to gather up the brightest crepe paper you can find, some scissors, string and glue and then you can get started.

	Cut two strips off the end of a roll of crepe paper. Cut a small piece – up to the first fold from each roll to be used as a wrapper in a later step.
	Cut narrow strips into the thick piece.
	Cut the ends of the folded strips open at the end the narrow strips are cut from.
	Thread string through the folded end. Fold the small piece in half length-ways.
	Scrunch the tassel around the string and wrap the folded small piece of crepe paper around and glue in place as pictured.

Download the printable version of the Tutorial – PDF Worksheet – Crepe Paper Tassels.

Crepe paper comes in fabulous colors, and so do these dragonflies.

Crepe paper is such a great material for paper crafts for children. It is bright, cheap and the way it is folded can be really useful! We needed something bright today as it has rained all day.

Process 1. Cut a strip off the end of a roll of crepe paper as pictured here. 2. Squeeze the middle of the crepe paper in a little and wrap the end of a chenille stick around the middle of the crepe paper. 3. Cut the sides of the crepe paper in the center to divide the ‘wings’. 4. You can leave the folds in the crepe paper joined, or you can cut them to release the layers. I have left the pink dragonfly with joined wings and cut the folds in the other two. 5. Fold and twist the chenille stick to make the dragonfly body and antennae.

If you want to put your dragonflies to work decorating anything that sits still for a brief moment, then glue some mini pegs to the back and then see what you can find to peg them to!

	We found a curtain, …
	… a shirt, …
	… and some hair!