Printable Dragon Paper Craft

How to Make this Paper Dragon

This craft is so easy that a toddler can do it – they aren’t going to color with fancy-schmancy colored pencils or stay within the lines of course… But they can certainly handle it.

Chinese Dragon Paper Puppet

You will need an additional piece of construction paper to create the accordion dragon body, plus wooden kebab skewers to make it into a ‘puppet’, like this.

Printable Dragon Paper Craft

Then simply click the above image to print out the dragon, color, and fold and glue as shown!

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Chinese Dragon Coloring Pages

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I silently said to myself, “Seriously? Nesting paper dolls? I’m drawing nested paper dolls?!”.

I thought I would want to draw pretty farm scenes, or cute illustrations trying to be a Helen Dardik wannabe. Nope, I drew out paper dolls, put my markers away, and haven’t felt like drawing since. I don’t think I’ll ever have myself figured out.

So today I broke out my ancient copy of Adobe Illustrator and put these Santa nesting dolls together. I thought they were cute in the drawing, but I have to say I think they are pretty dang adorable once you put them together!

Christmas Paper Craft Santas

How to Make These Christmas Paper Craft Santas

These couldn’t be easier to make – print out one of each of the following 4 nesting dolls, then cut out each of them.

Santa Nesting Doll - X Large	Santa Nesting Doll - Large
Santa Nesting Doll - Medium	Santa Nesting Doll - Small

Nesting Santa Doll Tower

Then I’m going to recommend a step that you will probably be inclined to skip. Trust me on this, don’t skip the following step – it makes it SO MUCH EASIER to assemble them. So what is this mystery step?

Score your folds

You don’t need a fancy bone folder, I just used a pen with no ink and a small ruler (though I’ve decided I’m sticking this bone folder into my own Christmas stocking this year!). When you score these folds, your fold lines are effortlessly crisp and exact. I never thought the extra step was worth it, until I tried it. Now I never fold paper crafts without scoring first! And actually, it makes the folding easier and faster, so it doesn’t really seem like an ‘extra step’ at all.

Next, make all of your folds before you add any glue. And using a glue stick is the best route for this project – instant stickiness with no mess. Then when you go back to add glue to the white glue tabs, the whole nesting doll almost naturally assembles itself.

Do this to all of the dolls and get playing with them!

More Printable Christmas Crafts

You might also want to check out these printable Christmas pinwheels or these Christmas mandala coloring pages (print them on Shrinky Dink ink jet plastic!).

Construction paper and pipe cleaners are about all you need for this paper pumpkin craft.

We’ve really gotten into decorating for both Halloween and autumn around here.  The dining room as a definite silly/spooky Halloween vibe, while the living room has more of a sophisticated “harvest” theme.  Just because it’s more grown up doesn’t mean there aren’t any kid crafts in there, with these simple pumpkins being a great example.

What you need to make paper strip pumpkins:

• Orange construction paper
• Scrap of green construction paper
• Green pipe cleaner
• Scissors
• Tape
• Stapler

Most of these craft supplies are right on hand!

Cut your paper lengthwise into strips. The width is up to you. We did 11 strips for our each pumpkin.

Fan the strips out and staple them at the gathering point. Then tape the two fans together.

Cut out a leaf and hole punch it at the bottom.

Hole punch each strip on the non-attached end. Bring them all together at the top and feed a green pipe cleaner through them and the leaf before twisting it to hold everything in place. Curl the pipe cleaner around your finger or a pen to look like pumpkin vines.

Use your paper pumpkins to add color and fun to your Halloween or harvest decorations.

You may notice a couple of our other autumn crafts in this picture, like the autumn leaf garland and paper bag pumpkin!

Your octopus doesn't have to be sad, but for some reason, Dot felt that ours was. Who am I to argue with and ar-TEEST?

We recently took a family trip to Seattle, and weeks later, Dot is still talking about the octopus we saw at the Seattle Aquarium.  We decided last week to make our own octopus.

Related Pages: Endangered Ocean Animal Coloring Pages, Kids Beach Crafts

What you need to make a paper bag octopus:

• Lunch-size paper bag
• Markers or crayons
• Newspaper
• Googly eyes
• White glue
• Ribbon/String

A few simple craft supplies are all you need to make a paper bag octopus.

Crumple enough newspaper to fill the bottom of the paper bag about 1/3-1/2 way full.

Gather the bag below the stuffing and tie it off to make your octopus' neck.

Glue on some googly eyes, and draw in the rest of the face with your marker.

Cut the remaining part of the bag into eight pieces to make your octopus' legs. We drew on some suckers, too.

You'll have tons of fun making this Creative Hands Paper Plate Caterpillar!

Related Pages: The Very Hungry Caterpillar Activities and Lesson Plan, Recycled Caterpillar Craft

Paper Plate Caterpillar Materials List

1 small paper plate

1 green foam sheet (5 ½ inches x 8 ½ inches)

1 red foam sheet (5 ½ inches x 8 ½ inches)

1 yellow foam sheet (5 ½ inches x 8 ½ inches)

1 orange foam sheet (5 ½ inches x 8 ½ inches)

2 small red poms (50 mm)

1 small yellow pom (50 mm)

2 googly eyes (1/2 inch)

1 bottle craft foam glue

1 bottle blue acrylic paint

1 paintbrush

1 hole puncher

1 scissors

1 pencil

paper towels or napkins

We love working regular household items like paper plates into projects.

How to Make this Paper Plate Caterpillar Craft

Lay down the paper towels and paint the top of the paper plate blue. Let it dry for a few hours.

Projects that start off with painting are always fun!

Using the caterpillar template, trace and cut out six or seven body parts from the paper plate for your caterpillar, depending on how long you want your critter to be. Glue the parts together as shown. Let dry.

Make sure you put down enough napkins or paper towels. Paint can easily get messy.

Using the template, trace and cut out six or seven pairs of legs in the orange foam.

If you need help, ask an adult to cut out the legs for you.

Take the green, red and yellow foam sheets and punch out five to seven holes each, depending on how you want to decorate your caterpillar. Start gluing the foam dots to your caterpillar and glue the legs underneath. TIP: Keep paper towel scraps nearby in case you need to wipe away extra glue.

Give the caterpillar body enough time to dry before you start adding embellishments.

With the center of the plate—that should be the only part left over—cut out a small head or use the template. Decorate the head with 2 googly eyes, a small yellow pom for the nose and a red foam smile for the mouth. For the mouth, you also can use the template.

If you need help, ask an adult to cut out the mouth.

Using the template, trace and cut out the antenna in orange foam. Glue 2 small red poms to each end. Glue the antenna under the head. Then glue the head to the body and let dry.

Your Paper Plate Caterpillar is almost complete!

Now your Paper Plate Caterpillar Craft is finished! What other critter could you make out of paper plates?

These 4th of July pinwheels would make a great party activity, camp craft, or simply summer rainy day fun!

Related Posts: Summer Party Games, Watermelon Carving, Luau Bingo Game

4th of July Pinwheels to Print	Stars and Stripes 4th of July Pinwheel	4th of July Fireworks Pinwheel
Stars and Swirls Patriotic Pinwheel	American Quilt Pinwheel	Red White and Blue Stars Pinwheel

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Learning to write craft project

So, my amazing three year old recently learned how to write her name.  I wanted to continue to encourage her to learn her letters, so we came up with this fun craft to practice them.  We use erasable markers so that she can practice her letters over and over again.

Make a craft that encourages kids to learn to write:

• Poster board (you could do a smaller version with cardstock)
• Markers
• Pencil
• Ruler or yard stick
• Scissors
• Contact paper

What you need to make this reusable writing poster.

Measure out your lines. We did larger ones at the top for learning the letters and smaller ones at the bottom to practice them.

Trace your lines to look like the paper you used in elementary school.

We used green on the top (for “go” or “start”), a yellow dashed line in the middle (for “caution”), and a red line at the bottom for “stop.”  I also wrote the alphabet, numbers, and basic shapes in the middle so Dot could use them as examples when learning to write.

Lay the poster out on your contact paper, cutting two pieces and then affixing one to the back and one to the front.

I left about 1 1/2" around the edges to make sure I had enough and then trimmed it down.

Look what a great job my super-brilliant girl did! (She wrote the one on the right, which is probably obvious.)

I didn't want to waste the back, so I colored it like a picture frame, and she can doodle on that erasable surface, too.

What I Learned the Hard Way: I got dry erase markers for this, and they don’t come off quite as well as I was hoping.  Using washable ones and wiping it off with water might be a better way to go.

What you’ll need to do some bubble painting:

• Water
• Dish soap
• Shallow dishes or pans
• Straws
• Paper (we used blank cards and envelopes to make stationery)

Supplies for bubble painting.

Fill your pans about halfway full of water and add a couple of drops of dish soap.

Add in several drops of food coloring and stir. (It needs to be pretty dark to really show up on the paper.)

Insert a straw and start blowing until the bubbles are almost spilling over the top of the pan or dish.

I just thought this picture of bubbles was really cool, so I included it. ;-)

Lay your paper over the top of the pan and smoosh the bubbles down with it. ("Smoosh" is a very technical term, by the way.)

When you pick up the paper, you'll be able to see marks where the bubbles touched it. (You can actually see where a few bubbles are stuck on still. They pop on their own.)

Do this several times to cover the whole paper.  We also used more than one color on a paper to make more colorful designs.

Here are a few of our finished bubble art pieces:

Blue and purple bubble art hand made stationery.

Hand made stationery in all kinds of color combinations.

What I Learned the Hard Way: You need a LOT of food coloring in the water.  I think we ended up using about eight drops to about half a cup of water.

What Dot Learned the Hard Way: Blow, don’t suck.  (Oops!)

I’ve been holding onto this craft for a few days, and I’ve decided I can hold onto it no longer. It’s my new favorite craft on this site, and I think it would be a perfect thing to do with kids for a Mother’s Day craft (though I think the plant marker garden craft come in a close second on that).

Behold, the Tissue Paper Flower Topiary

I’m actually thinking of making myself a two-tiered one to put in my office. That seems so dorky when I say that out loud though…

What You Need to Make the Tissue Paper Flower Topiary

3 sheets of green tissue paper (ideally in three different shades of green)

3 sheets of pink tissue paper (again ideally in three different shades of pink, or whatever three colors you want)

I think the reason this turned out so well was because I was able to use different shades of green and pink tissue paper. Normal tissue paper packages don’t come so nicely shaded for paper flower crafts, but I swear by a huge package of tissue paper I am able to get at Hobby Lobby for $5 (inconveniently they don’t sell online, but CreateforLess has shades of green at $.89 a package).

A 3 inch styrofoam ball

A small cylinder or cube of floral foam to stick into the clay pot (You could also use play dough)
(I cut a triangle of styrofoam from some appliance packaging we had around the house)

A 3 inch (or so) mini clay plant pot

Plain straight pins

4 straight pins with pretty pearlescent ball on top for the main flowers

A 6″-7″ inch stick from your yard

How to Make the Tissue Paper Flower Topiary

First cut up the green tissue paper into approximately 2 inch squares. They are going to get crumpled up, so don’t worry about being precise or anything.

Start scrunching up the squares into loose little balls. I found it worked best if I rolled them between my hands as if it were clay I was trying to roll into a ball. Even on a tiny ball you will need a surprisingly large number of these, because you want them to be relatively close together.

Next just start pinning them to the styrofoam ball. Don’t put them too close together, because you will want to have room to put in the flowers. You can see in the second photo how close I put them together.

Now cut up your pink tissue paper into squares. For the largest flowers I used about 3 inch squares, the medium about two inch squares and the small about one inch squares. Again, this is approximate, because they are just going to get crumpled up again.

Add the largest flowers first, because they will be the most prominent and need to be placed somewhat evenly around the ball. I thought I was going to add a lot, but found that four was plenty. If you can find straight pins with the pretty pearl tops, use those to attach the largest flowers. If you have a lot of those, you can also use them for your smaller flowers too. I didn’t, so I just used regular straight pins everywhere else.

Then add the smaller flowers in between the green ‘leaves’ where you can still see the styrofoam.

Next, decide what part of the ball you want to be the top, and stuff the stick from your yard into the bottom. I didn’t take a picture of this part, because it’s pretty dang easy to do. Then shove the cylinder or dough into the flower post, and stuff the stick into the midde so that it is standing straight up.

Cover the foam base with green tissue like you did the top ball, but this time, don’t let the styrofoam peek through.

And ta – da, you are done!

Most of these Easter printables are suitable for kids age 6+, though there are a handful of them that will either need adult help or are better for older children. All of them are free, though one or two them are on sites in different languages. Yet I made sure that all of them have at least picture instructions so that you don’t need to know Chinese in order to make them!

Related Pages: Easter Mad Libs, Easter Rice Krispie Treats, Easter Finger Puppets Craft

Find all our Woo! Jr. Easter Kids Activities right here!