Paper Crafts for Children

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

	Mothers Day Tea Bag Card From all the hits this craft gets, it must be one of the most popular on my site. Have a look and see why everyone likes it so much.
	Fold Out Card A bit of a fancy card, but ever so easy to make.
	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.
	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.

Such a great idea for a gift! This is perfect for turning a childs drawing into a gift – even a toddlers scribble designs would make a much appreciated present for something like Mothers Day.

The example from Pippi Pipecleaners below uses a very cute design that you can make from craft paper or from left over artwork.

Simple to make, you just need to cut out two identical shapes.

Layer up the shapes and glue some ribbon to the inside of one of the pieces. Glue the two pieces together leaving an opening.

Dab a small amount of scented oil onto a cotton wool ball – if you put too much it will ooze through the paper and may mark clothing. To make sure it will be OK, unroll another ball or two and roll it around the scented one.

Glue the closing shut and it is ready to be given and enjoyed. Just in time for Mothers Day!

Ssssuch a sssssimple yet ssssssssspecial card.

To make this rather cool snake shape card, start by folding your paper or card along the length to make a long skinny shape. Sketch and then cut a snake shape out as pictured – making sure that you have the wiggles of the snake keep to the fold in a few places so that you have a card and not two separate snake shapes.

Decorate the outside in a suitably snakey pattern.

And then ‘hiss’ your message on the inside.

This craft first featured in one of my newsletters. It was a card I had always admired, and when I went to make it myself I was very pleased with how easy it was to make – so it is a great paper craft for children, and just in time for Mothers Day!

	The basic shape is a square with a half circle on each side. I have made a template for you so that it is easier for you to get started.
	Crease along the sides of the square, so that the half circles all fold in.
	Fold each half circle in working around the square – the last half circle needs to tuck under the first half circle and the card will stay closed.

When my then boyfriend and I were planning a celebration to mark 10 years together, a wedding seemed like a good idea – that wedding party was 12 years ago now. We were extremely budget conscious at that stage and although my parents were covering many costs, we wanted to do things our way – the handmade way. So the invites for our wedding were handmade, the ones here are all the ideas we tried out – lots of good ideas for paper craft invites.

Or get your children involved and use them to create special cards for Mothers or Fathers Day, or Valentines Day – or don’t wait for a reason, just make them because you want to!

Dribble the shape of some hearts with some acrylic paint and when it is dry color the shapes you have made with dye or runny paint.

Dribble a heart shape with acrylic paint or PVA glue and then use that as a print base to take a print from or do a crayon rubbing.

Cut half of a heart shape out of the fold of the card and then paint a heart shape in gold.

Draw a picture into a polystyrene tray with a pen or sharp pencil. Use that as a print base by dabbing or rolling paint onto it and then using the paper to pick up the image.

Dab around the outside of a heart shape with a suitable color and some gold paint for sparkle.

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.