Paper Crafts for Children

Owls are such a great craft subject, and there are many beautiful crafts out there for them, but I think this must be one of the easiest crafty owls to make – perfect for little fingers.

This craft is fun to make, but would also be ideal for putting on a gift card!

You need a cup cake case, which you flatten and then fold the top down a little.

Then fold the sides in to make the wings, on a slight angle as pictured.

Finally add some details. The eyes could be googly ones like we have used or you could just draw them on. Use some scraps of card to make some feet and a beak.

A lovely excuse to make this lovely paper craft.

A simple craft that I have used before for 3D leaves, because I love how effective it is.

Just make three copies of a heart shape, using a different color for each heart shape. We used a cookie cutter to trace our shape onto some paper.

Fold two of them in half.

Run a strip of glue along the spines of the folded pieces and layer them up on each other and on the flat piece. Once the glue it dry fold out the sides to create your shape.

This can be folded up as part of a card, or even have loving messages written on each ‘leaf’.

I really like this technique – it gives a cool result even if you have no artistic or creative skills!

To make the pattern, draw up a grid on the paper. Then write the word on top, and rub out the grid lines that are inside the word shapes. You can also do it the other way round and write the word first, then do the grid lines. Color in the shapes using two different colors, alternating them as shown.

We did something similar for a Mosaic Fathers Day Card idea

It is still paper lantern time. Getting just a little bit more fancy now, but only a little bit more fancy than the basic paper lantern!

Make a tube out of a length of a sheet of paper. For this lantern, the handiest paper was scrapbook squares – so scrapbook square were used – but any paper is fine.

Roll the another sheet around the tube to measure the circumference. Add a bit for overlap.

Fold the paper in half.

Fold down a strip (about two finger widths) from the open edges as a guide to cut strips to. Unfold.

Cut strips starting at the centre fold up to the fold line. Cut off excess if any.

Leave folded. Starting from the second strip in, cut off every second one at the fold mark. As simple as this seems, it is easy to cut off the wrong one so double check before you cut!

Open out and glue around the tube top and bottom. If there is an overlap that looks messy, cut away the offending strips to make them more uniform.

Attach a loop made from the left over paper.

There are some crafts that were such a part of my childhood making stuff, that they are often overlooked in the search for that cool craft to create with our children. And of course, just because I think it was a common craft, it does not mean that everyone knows how to do it!

So just in case you have forgotten about this one, or if you have never done – it is paper lantern time!

All you need is some colored or patterned paper, some scissors and glue.

These lanterns can be made any size so just use what paper you have. This lantern uses scrapbook paper, but you could use paper decorated in a previous crafty, arty session.

Fold your sheet of paper in half. It doesn’t matter if you fold length-ways or width-ways as your lantern will still work but it will affect the shape.

Make a fold a couple of finger widths down from the unfolded edge on both sides. Unfold. This is the line you cut up to.

Cut through the folded edge up to the fold-line. Make each cut about the same width.

Open out and keeping the narrow strip that is not cut at the top and bottom, make it into a tube and glue in place.

Use another strip of paper to make a hanging loop and glue in place on each side of the top.

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