Plus, I have to add that these would make fantastic Christmas or other gifts that kids can make!

What you need for this barrette craft:

• Silk flowers
• Felt
• Scissors
• Hot glue
• Barrette clips

The bigger flowers are actually the easiest to make into barrettes.

(Back view.) Pull the flowers off the plastic stems and cut off the plastic fitting on the back.

Cut a felt circle that is smaller in diameter than the length of your barrette.

Apply hot glue. I'd recommend going in a circle near the edge.

To put the pieces together, open the barrette and insert the felt, glue-side down.  Then press that against the back of the flower.

Glue the three pieces together.

We put three flowers on this barrette.

Here’s our sweet friend Kendall on her fifth birthday wearing one of the silk flower barrettes we made for her:

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?

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!

Rice Krispie Treat Eggs	Corn Flake Krispie Treat Easter Chicks	Rice Krispie Treat Easter Bunny	Chocolate Easter Rice Krispie Chicks
Spectacular Rice Krispie Treat Eggs	Rice Krispie Treat Spring Butterfly	Easter Rice Krispie Treat Pops	Easter Egg Rice Krispie Treats
Rice Krispie Treat Nests	Rice Krispie Spring Flowers	Rice Krispie Spring Caterpillar	Trix Krispie Treats (Think outside the cereal box!)

You might also want to try our Easter Bunny cupcakes or our easy flower cupcakes.

As always, leave us a note in the comments to let us know what you use our templates for – if you blog about it we would love to feature your projects, too!

Related Pages: Easter Coloring Pages, Printable Easter Crafts, Easter Handprint Crafts

Printable Easter Shapes	Easter Eggs Template	Easter Bunny Templates
Spring Chick Template	Spring Tulip Template	Easter Chick Template
Easter Bunny Shape	Easter Carrot Template	Easter Basket Template
Easter Bow Template	Easter Cross Template	Easter Lamb Template

Check out all of our Easter kids activities while you are here!

Enjoy your own rain shower without getting wet when you make this kid's craft.

I am so thrilled that spring is here, and we celebrated its arrival by making a rainstick.  Everything we needed for this craft was already around the house, and some of it was even recycled.  How’s that for getting into the spirit of April?  Not only have we covered the whole “April showers” thing, but we kind of hit on Earth Day, as well.

Once your rainstick craft is done, you can turn it from end to end and hear it “rain” as the rice inside slides from one end to the other.  I find that turning it slowly makes for a more realistic rain effect.

Related Pages: Recycled box aliens, 12 More Recycled Crafts for Kids

To make a rainstick, you will need:

• An empty paper towel roll
• Left over tissue paper
• Scissors
• White glue
• Paint brush
• Rubber bands
• Wax paper
• Aluminum foil
• Rice/Popcorn kernels (if I made another one, I would just stick with the rice because I think it sounds more like rain)

The materials for an April showers rainstick craft.

Start with a sheet of aluminum foil about 25" long.

Roll the aluminum foil into a long tube to make the interior of the rainstick craft. I wrapped ours around a dowel.

Curl the foil into a spring. Again, I used the dowel.

You'll want the final coil to be just about the length of your paper towel roll. It then gets placed inside the rainstick.

Wrap wax paper around one end of your rainstick craft, and affix it with a rubber band. I then cut off the excess.

Have your kiddo help you pour in rice, popcorn kernels, or whatever you've decided to use to make your sound effects.

Seal up the other end of your rainstick craft with wax paper and a rubber band.

Cut your tissue paper into small pieces (about an inch or so). We recycled tissue from presents we've received.

Mix white glue with a little water and use your paint brush to decoupage the tissue paper on to your rainstick.

I decoupaged the tissue paper right over the wax paper to make it less likely to come loose and fall off.

What I Learned the Hard Way: I originally had cut out wax paper circles to put over the ends, but I found them really hard to work with, so I ended up just using a bigger chunk of wax paper and cutting it after I put the rubber band on.  Also, the popcorn doesn’t sound nearly as good as the rice.

This pine cone bird feeder craft is easy enough for kids to make

The hardest part of making this pine cone bird feeder craft was finding bird seed in bags of less than 5-zillion pounds!  My daughter loved it and was actually able to help quite a bit.

Related Pages: More Pinecone Crafts, Stick Crafts, Make Fairy Houses

What you need to make a simple bird feeder:

• A pine cone
• Peanut butter
  (Note – use soy butter instead if your child has a peanut allergy!)
• Ribbon
• Bird seed
• Plastic baggie

How to make a pine cone bird feeder

Start by cutting a ribbon about 24″ in length.  The idea is to make it so that squirrels can’t easily reach your delicious bird seed.  I think it’s better to attach the ribbon first so that you don’t get peanut butter and seeds everywhere later on.

Move a couple of layers from the top of the pine cone and tie the ribbon around tightly.

Next, smear peanut butter all over your pine cone bird feeder.  This part is kind of messy.  We worked to make sure we got some peanut butter in between the various layers of the pine cone for maximum bird seed coverage.

Peanut butter will make the bird seed stick to your pine cone.

Place your gooey pine cone into a bag of bird seed, hold the top shut, and shake.

(Leave the ribbon sticking out of the top of the bag so it doesn’t get covered in peanut butter.)

The seeds stick to the peanut butter to cover your pine cone.

Take it outside and hang it from a tree with the ribbon loop you created.  We put ours right outside the kitchen window so we can see if any birds come to enjoy a snack.

ETA: I may just need to face reality and rename this post “Squirrel Feeder Craft for Kids.”  *sigh*

The view that greeted me from my kitchen window this morning.

Caterpillar kids craft from an egg carton

This caterpillar is a fun recycled craft that transforms an old egg carton into a toy.  It is a fun craft for kids because it’s simple, and they have something tangible to play with when it’s done.

Related Pages: Caterpillar Math Coloring Page, Bug Coloring Pages, more Recycled Kids Crafts.

To make your caterpillar, you will need:

• An empty egg carton
• Paint
• Paint brush
• Googly eyes
• Pom poms (optional)
• Pipe cleaner
• Glue
• Scissors

Craft supplies needed to make your caterpillar

Cut off one section of the egg carton to make the caterpillar's body.

Let your little one paint the caterpillar's body.

To make the antennae, use your scissors to poke two holes in the first “bump” on your egg carton.  Fold the pipe cleaner in half, and insert one end into each hole so they stick out the top.  Twist them once so they stay in place.  I wanted to curl them around a pencil for curly antennae, but Dot insisted that they stay straight.

Adding the antennae

Glue on googly eyes and a pom pom nose for the caterpillar's face.

Let your kid decorate the caterpillar.  We glued pom poms on ours to give him some color and character.

Dot loved the finished craft project so much that she carried it around for two days and showed it off to everyone!

She was so proud of it!

What I Learned the Hard Way: So, it turns out that when you tell a three-year-old to paint something, you are likely to get a whole lot of paint in one place and not much anywhere else.  To combat this, I “helped” her paint the caterpillar’s body.

I’ve tried to find Cricut craft projects that don’t require a big investment in more cartridges, though some do, of course. Several of them offer free template downloads or instructions on how to create the projects on your own. Also, some of these patterns are just as easily made on other paper cutting craft tools, such as the Gypsy and Cuttlebug.

Related Pages: Printable Box Templates, Printable Vintage Postcards, Printable Dragon Paper Craft

Cricut Paper Crafts

Cricut Paper Purse	Cricut Robot Papercraft	Pretty Cricut Cupcake Wrappers	Cricut Paper Flowers Craft

Halloween Cricut Crafts

Cricut Halloween Decorations	Cricut Paper Pumpkins	Decorated Halloween Candles	Halloween Door Hangers

Thanksgiving Cricut Crafts

Cricut Thanksgiving Turkey Craft	Cricut Thanksgiving Pie Favor Boxes	Cricut Thanksgiving Place Cards	Thanksgiving Paper Banners

Christmas Cricut Crafts

Paper Cutting Christmas Ornaments	Cricut Glitter Snowflakes	Christmas Mouse Candy Cane Holders	Cricut Paper Christmas Scene

Valentines Day Cricut Crafts

Cricut Valentine Treat Bag Toppers	Cricut Strawberry Valentine Treats	Cricut Valentine Cards	Cricut Valentines Day Banner

Easter Cricut Crafts

Cricut Spring Flower Easter Treats	Cricut Easter Bunny Basket	Cricut Easter Egg Holder	Cricut Easter Place Cards

Check out more paper cutting crafts while you are here, too!

For how pretty this cake looks, it is surprisingly easy. You could also change up the frosting/colored sugar colors to make this flower cake look like a sunflower. Use chocolate sprinkles for the center!

Easy Flower Cake

What You Need to Make This Easy Flower Cake

Flower Cake Pans

A standard round cake pan

Heart mold pan (this one is silicone)

Cake mix or a killer cake recipe

Store bought frosting or a to die for frosting recipe (I kid you not – this frosting is TO. DIE. FOR.)

Colored sugar (or make your own with sugar and food coloring (instructions below), or colored frosting)

Zippered plastic bags to make colored sugar, or to use instead of a pastry bag.

Optional - shallow 3″ round cake mold for leaves (you can also just halve a heart cupcake for the same effect)

Optional - pastry bag

How to Make this Flower Cake

Simply mix up your cake batter, and cook it in the following molds:

1 round cake form.

12 heart cupcakes, filled low so that they don’t lose their shape and pop over the top of the pan.

2 shallow round cakes, or two more heart cupcakes, cut in half to make 4 leaves.

You should have enough with one cake mix. But I used both chocolate and vanilla cake for mine, because a large family is hard to please with one flavor!

Once complete, your cooked cake pieces should look like this:

Unfrosted Flower Cake

I then frosted only the tops of the cake pieces. For the yellow center, you could use yellow frosting, or I frosted mine with regular white frosting, then dusted it heavily with colored yellow sugar. Do this before you put the leaves and petals on the plate.

How to Make Colored Sugar

This is so easy you probably don’t need directions. Put about a cup of sugar into a zippered plastic bag, and add a few drops of food coloring. Give it to the kids to play with as they mix the coloring with the sugar. Add different colors mixed together to get various shades of yellow and green, or whatever color you want to make! Add more food coloring as necessary to get your desired color saturation.

WARNING: Even if you put a whole bottle of red food coloring into the bag, it will not be as red as the colored sugar you can buy in the  store.

Yes, I found that one out the hard way.

Flower Cake Assembly

To make the flower cake leaves, frost the tops of your half rounds, or half hearts. Then dip the tops into colored sugar. Again, you could just use green frosting for this part as well. I just had the colored sugar leftover from Christmas and really needed a reason to use it up!

Put the heart petal shapes around the cake before you frost them.

To pipe the frosting onto the flower petals, you could use a pastry bag with a fluted tip. I couldn’t find mine and was in a HUGE rush to finish. So I just used a zippered plastic bag with the corner cut off.

WARNING: DO NOT use cheap zipper bags for this. They pop open. The good news is that if this happens, it’s fairly easy to dump the frosting into another bag. And then pray that one doesn’t break, either.

Yes, I found that one out the hard way, too.

More Flower Party Ideas

Flower garden birthday party ideas

Dirt cake recipe

Make adorable flower streamers

Easy flower cupcakes

Kids flower crafts