Paper Crafts for Children

I love that this craft has a useful purpose as well as looking great in the kiddies rooms, and you get to do some recycling too.

You need a sturdy shoebox, 2 or 3 empty card rolls, newspaper torn into small strips, glue and paint.

Cut the card rolls into thirds and place on your shoe box lid in two lines. If your box is smaller you may think two rows of three looks better.

Secure the toilet rolls to the lid using some of the strips of newspaper dipped in glue. Use long thin pieces to cover the top of the toilet rolls making sure you smooth them down well. Continue to cover the rest of the lid with the strips of newspaper until you have three layers over the entire lid. I don’t wait for each layer to dry as I am too impatient. I think of this as a basic form of papier mache.

Make sure you don’t fold the paper under the rim of the lid as you will make it smaller and it won’t fit on the box.

Leave to dry thoroughly.

Paint the box and lid with a good craft paint (if you are going to use a light coloured paint, you may like to use white paper on your last layer of papier mache so the words won’t show through). Leave to dry. To make it even hardier, and also if you have used a cheaper poster paint, you might also want to seal it with a craft varnish.

This is another adorable craft made by Pippi Pipecleaners. This technique can be used to make all sorts of finger puppets just change the details to fit the animal you want to make.

You will need card in two shades and all the usual crafty bits like a pencil, scissors, glue stick, googly eyes and sticky tape

Draw two circles on the light green card so they overlap a little. I drew round a side-plate and a mug to get the size I wanted.

Draw on the legs, tail and a bit extra for the nose.

Cut out leaving the overlap uncut. Cut out the slits.

Turn over so you can’t see the pencil line.

Overlap the slits and glue in place with the gluestick. I used my trusty clothes pegs to hold whilst the glue dried and then added sticky tape to the underside to make sure they stayed secure and flat.

Fold out the legs and tails and gently bend the neck so the turtle sits flat.

Decorate your turtle with pieces of the dark green card cut to shape and attach two googly eyes.

Make two rings from strips of card to fit your fingers.

Attach the two rings to another strip of card. Remember to put the rings on your finger first to work out the distance needed between them.

Attach this to the neck of the turtle using the sticky tape.

And it really is a finger puppet …

I had fun making this one – I wanted to make something really simple that lots of ages and abilities could enjoy – this one worked for me!

You start by making a really simple basket using two paper plates and a bit of paper for a handle. Cut the top of the paper plates and face them together with a bit of paper folded to make a handle in between them as pictured. Staple the plates together with the ends of the paper handle between them.

You now have a very simple basket that could be decorated in any number of ways. Your young crafter may choose to paint or glitter or collage their basket. I chose to curl it! I curled some strips of paper by rolling them around a pen and then gluing them on to the basket. This is quite a good technique to teach even quite young children to do – they find it quite fun!

This is a great craft for an older child to create – they will be very very proud of their results

Pippi Pipecleaners made this beautiful egg, but her first attempt was a bowl using this technique – unfortunately she didn’t use any petroleum jelly. Turns out that is quite important – so we have no bowl to show you but we had a good laugh though! With Easter around the corner she had another go – worked perfectly I think.

You need a water balloon, white tissue, flowers, white glue, cling film and petroleum jelly! You might also want to use a balloon pump and have a clothes peg handy.

Inflate the water balloon. Don’t over inflate so you can squeeze the balloon into an egg shape.

Cover the balloon in petroleum jelly and then the cling film. Make sure the cling film sits as flat as possible. Twist the end of the cling film and secure with a clothes peg. The cling film adds an extra layer of strength to your egg without blocking out light and the petroleum jelly stops the balloon sticking to the cling film.

Cut the white tissue into small pieces – if the pieces are too big they won’t sit flat against the balloon.

Dilute the white glue so it is a consistency similar to pouring cream. Paint some of the balloon with the glue and then stick on the tissue. Smooth out any pieces of tissue that are sticking up. Cover your balloon with two coats of tissue.

Stick your flowers to the balloon brushing down with the glue brush. If you are using fresh flowers, make sure you select flat flowers as any air will cause the flowers to decay.

Coat with one coat of tissue.

Leave to dry thoroughly. I used the peg to clip it out of the way.

Pop the balloon and snip off the extra cling film.

Decorate with a ribbon to hide the hole.

Oh I had fun with this one – and my family heard probably a few too many times how much I like it – but there are so many good things about it … 1. It is easy and effective (I suppose that could be two points but I really like high-lighting paper crafts that cover both) 2. It works for young children, as well as slightly older kids (like me) 3. The children can do most of it on their own 4. It can be adapted to other themes as well 5. No special materials are needed 6. It can even be educational 7. I could use a shamrock shape cutter I found among my mum’s (mom’s) crafting gear.

I really like the idea of something like this at the door to welcome visitors with a celebration wreath. Just change the colors or theme to whatever is relevant. I think this would be great for letting everyone know which local sports team you support.

For the base of the wreath, a pizza box lid or base is a great size. Trace around a large plate and a small one to make the wreath shape and cut it out. You could also make a smaller one using a paper plate. Paint the shape green so that it does not matter if the artist covers all the cardboard with their decorations.

Gather up all sorts of green bits and pieces. This is the educational part, have your young artist help you find things the right color. To add to the mix we roughly chopped up some green paper. I also used a cutter to make the shamrock shapes – thanks mum!

Then just randomly glue things on! You could demonstrate scrunching some tissue up and looping bits of crepe paper – or just leave them to it and see what they think of. I had glitter I was going to add at the end to fill and cover if it was needed, but it had so much on it that I did not use it after-all.

Keep an eye out for this cowboy – you might see a bit more of him around here! If you like the look of his hat – it is a great easy one to quickly craft up.

	Find a nice sturdy large piece of paper and draw a hat shape on it as pictured. To get the size right you can roughly trace around a cap for the inner circle size. Cut it out as indicated by the lighter card.
	Then you push the ‘top’ of the hat up and push the brim over your head – he looks like a bit of a cowboy to me!