I am sure that it is no surprise to my readers that I love pasta crafts. They are my favorite. As I have told you before, I have more pasta boxes set aside for crafting than I do for cooking. Here are 20 fun pasta crafts that you can do with your kids.
My love for pasta crafts needs no intro. If you follow me regularly, you already know about my many boxes of pasta set aside just for projects such as these. This weekend we spent 2 days making crafts out of a variety of pasta for the latest article that we were doing in this month’s SEEK. I have to admit, we got a bit carried away. I could not stop once we started.
For these crafts you will need assorted pasta, Elmer’s school glue or a glue gun (for adult use only), paint, glitter & some ribbon
Pasta wreath
Pasta needed:
Bow ties
Place your pasta on wax paper & glue bow ties in a circle as seen below. Let dry. Paint the wreath in green & paint 3 more bow ties in red. Let dry & then glue the red bows to the wreath. Attach a bow, string or pipe cleaner around the wreath to hang.
Pasta snowflake
Pastas needed:
Ziti
Wagon wheels
Bowties
Ditalini
Place your pasta on wax paper & glue as seen below. Let the glue dry. In a small container mix the school glue with a few drops of water to thin out the glue. Paint the entire assembled snowflake with the mixture & the sprinkle with glitter. Let the glue dry & flip over. Attach a ribbon with glue to form an ornament,
Pasta Ornaments
Pasta needed:
Large shells (stuffed shells pasta shells)
Wagon wheel pasta
Elbow macaroni
Glue a wagon wheel on top of the flattest end of a pasta shell. Glue an elbow to the top of the wagon wheel. It should form a half circle hole.
Paint your ornaments in colors of your choice. Let dry completely. Using glue draw an ornament design on your shell. Shake glitter over the top. Let dry & then shake off excess glitter. String a ribbon or string through the hole.
Pasta Rudolph
Pasta needed:
Large shell
bow ties
Elbow macaroni
Medium sized shells
Uncooked chick pea for the nose
Googly eyes
Paint both sized shells brown. Paint the bow ties and elbows in black. Attach the pasta as pictured. Add the googly eyes & a red painted chickpea for his nose.
Please stop in & visit us at Seek and check out our latest article. Fun With Pasta Crafts
Is it weird that I have 8 boxes of pasta in my house designated only for crafting? I have more pasta for arts & crafts than I do for actually eating. I love pasta crafts. It is so much fun to work with and it comes in so many varieties & shapes. You can paint it, string it together & glue it. They are so many possibilities.
When I asked Mai if she wanted to make pasta skeletons with mommy tonight, she jumped up and threw her hands in the air & said “Yeeeeeeaaaah & and we make pasta monsters, and pasta kitty cat & a pasta mama and dada….”
Taking one of my daughter’s suggestions, we made some pasta monsters too.
What you will need:
Unlined ziti
Mezza Rigatoni
Elbow macaroni
Farfalle
Small shells
Jumbo shells for stuffed shells
Ditalini
Wagon Wheels
Hot Glue gun
Yarn
Paint
While Mai painted the jumbo shells for the monsters, I started to string & glue the skeleton together.
PASTA SKELETON
Directions:
Next we were on to our monsters. Mai & I made quite a mess as we painted our pieces for our monsters.
PASTA MINIONS
Directions: These are directions to make one minion. Paint a jumbo shell & two pieces of ziti yellow. Paint two wagon wheels white with a dot brown in the center. (We used blue, because Mai wanted blue eyes.) Paint two small shells & one ditalini black. Let the paint dry. Use the glue gun to glue wagon wheels in place for the eyes. Use black paint to paint a thick line on either side of the wagon wheels so that it looks like goggles. Paint in your mouth & teeth using black & white paint. With blue paint, paint the bottom 3rd portion of your minion. Paint a thick stick of black around each yellow ziti piece. Let dry. Glue the ziti to the sides of the minion to make arms. Glue the two small black shells to the bottom of the minion to form feet. Glue a black ditalini in the middle of the blue painted portion of the minion.
PASTA MONSTER
Paint a jumbo shell, 6 ziti pieces, 1 elbow macaroni & 4 small shells green. Paint one wagon wheel white. Add a blue circle in the middle & then a black dot. Let dry. Glue the ziti arms in place using 2 pieces on each side. Glue a small shell to the end of each arm to form a hand. Glue two pieces of ziti in place for the legs & then add the small shells as feet. Glue the wagon wheel eye in place & then add the elbow macaroni over the eye to form an eyelid. Paint in a crooked mouth with black paint & dot with white for teeth. Let dry.
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My daughter likes to play different characters on a daily basis. Some days she is her favorite cartoon characters, such as Joy from ‘Inside Out’ or Elsa from ‘Frozen’, but most days she like to pretend that she is different baby animals. For the past few days we have been a whole family of ants. She even insisted that she had to wear a black tutu because ants wear black tutus of course. When our post dinner craft time came, it only made sense that baby ant & mama ant made some pasta ants to join our little ant family.
Hot glue 3 pasta shells together side by side as shown. (Adults should operate glue gun)
Glue pasta elbows to the sides to form legs.
Add a couple of short strands of spaghetti to the head for antennae.
Paint your little pasta ants in your favorite ant color. Let it dry.
Add googly eyes to finish off your ants.
Mai set aside a bowl of food for her ants. They were very hungry.
She continued to paint shells & told me that she was making leaves to cover her ant babies. That lead us into craft #2. We painted a handful of shells in green. We let them dry.
Since it was so late we went to bed & picked up our craft the next day. I cut a tree trunk out of construction paper & glued it to a piece of paper. I gave my daughter the shells & some glue and let her fill up her tree.
She scattered her shells all around the branches & then set her project aside to let dry.
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My daughter is a mix of girly girl & tomboy. She loves tutus & dressing up like a princess, but she also loves bugs & playing with trucks. In the summer she would chase around the bugs in our yard. I had to keep her from trying to grab the bees. With Valentine’s Day nearing, my little love bug & I were going to craft some love bugs of our own using our favorite crafting medium. It is time to break out our pasta boxes.
What you will need:
Assorted Pasta shells: Jumbo shells, ziti, medium sized shells, elbows, wagon wheels, bow ties & spaghetti
Paint – reds, pinks, purples, black
Glue Gun – **Glue guns should be used by adults only**
Directions: Paint your pasta pieces using assorted colors. A breakdown of pasta pieces & colors used for each bug will be listed below.
Let dry.
Pasta Lady Bug
Pasta used: jumbo shell, medium sized shell & 2 broken off pieces of spaghetti.
Paint the jumbo shell red for the body. Paint the medium shell & spaghetti black. The medium shell will be the head & the spaghetti is an antennae. Let dry. Paint black hearts onto the body for the lady bug’s spots. After all of the paint is dry, use a glue gun to assemble your lady bug.
Pasta Butterfly
Pasta used: ziti, 4 medium pasta, wagon wheel, 2 broken off pieces of spaghetti.
Paint your pieces in colors of your choice using the ziti for the body, shells for the wings & wagon wheel for the head & spaghetti for the antennae. Glue all pieces together. Let dry & finish off by painting hearts on the wings.
Pasta Spider
Pasta used: jumbo shell, medium shell & 8 elbows.
Paint the shells in your choice of colors. The large shell will be the body & the medium will act as the head. Paint the elbows black. They will be legs. Let dry & glue together. Paint a large heart on the body.
Pasta Bee
Pasta used: Jumbo shell, medium shell, 2 bow ties, an elbow & 2 broken off pieces of spaghetti.
Paint the jumbo shell in a color of your choice. You will use it as the body. Let it dry & paint black stripes around it. Paint the medium shell, bow ties, elbow & spaghetti black. The medium shell will be used for the head; the bow ties will be wings, the elbow for the stinger & the spaghetti for antennae. Glue the pieces together & add a heart to the head.
I love crafting with pasta because there are so many variations that you can use. Have fun with it & flex your creative muscles.
After our bugs dried, Mai played good bug, bad bug with them. Apparently the spider is really mean to the other bugs. We had to put him in timeout.
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The other day my daughter was digging through a chest of drawers and came across a bamboo necklace that I bought when we were in the Bahamas. The necklace was just a simple beaded necklace on craft wire. My daughter was having a great time sliding the bamboo beads back & forth. She wanted to break it open and play with the beads, but I did not want to ruin my necklace. Instead we had another idea.
The beads on the necklace reminded me of Ditalini pasta. We had a couple of boxes of it to spare, so we decided to make bracelets with our Ditalini.
First we dyed our pasta by tossing it a cup at a time into a plastic baggie with food coloring. Spread out the pasta on a paper towel & let it dry.
(For a more rustic look, toss all your beads together while wet & try baking your beads for 30 minutes at 275-300 degrees. It will change the color & shape of the bead for a rougher look.)
Mai saw all the pasta laid out to dry and got excited. “Mama, we do project.” We do love our projects. Once the food coloring dried, my daughter was ready to dive in. We poured all the pasta beads into a shoe box & mixed them up. Mai had a little difficulty using string to make our bracelets, so we pipe cleaners instead. This worked much better. She was able to string them up with ease. This is a great activity for hand-eye coordination & Mai really enjoyed this.
Measure the pipe cleaner around the wrist to find the desired size for you bracelet. Snip the pipe cleaner about an inch longer than you need it.
Twist the two ends together tightly & slide the bead around the newly joined section.
We made one more bead craft before our night was done. The colored pasta is not just for crafting, it also great for sensory boxes, color sorting and counting games.
My daughter is fascinated by older children. When we are out in public she will very boldly approach an older child and strike up a conversation. The other day she ran up to a boy around the age of 6 & said “Hey boyfriend, hold hands.” This brought a chuckle from her mother & I, but the boy was not that amused. The problem is most kids of an certain age do not quite understand her or want to engage in a conversation with a 2 year old girl.
One of my best friends has a lovely 7 year old daughter. Mai of course adores her & much to my great happiness, she like Mai too. She has a sweet and nurturing nature and is very attentive to my much younger daughter.
They came for a visit this weekend. We were supposed to go to the zoo, but since it was a rainy day, we stayed in & had a craft day instead.
Last week we were crafting & playing with spaghetti. I thought we could continue with the pasta crafts.
Pasta Angels
What you will need:
Bow tie pasta
Spiral pasta
Thick spaghetti
Paint (assorted colors)
Paint brushes
Glue gun
Directions:
Paint one of your bow tie pastas, a spiral pasta & a spaghetti in the colors of your choice. The bowtie will be the wings, the spiral will be the body & the spaghetti will be the antennas. Let them dry.
Paint as many of each as you would like, painting one of each type of pasta.
With a glue gun, glue one side of the spiral pasta & place in the center of the bow tie pasta.
And in honor of Memorial Day…
Memorial Day Pasta Angels
What you will need:
Bow tie pasta
Dry garbanzo beans
Paint (assorted colors)
Paint brushes
Glue gun
Directions:
To make the body of our angel, we painted a bow tie pasta in camouflauge. We started off with one shade of green.
Layer on a different color of green, also layer on shades of yellow.
To paint the red, white & blue wing, paint a blue rectangle on one side & then stripe the sides with red.
Let it dry.
Again paint as many as you like. Painting one camo & one red, white & blue for each angel that you are making.
Glue along the top of a camouflage pasta.
Press into place. Place perpendicular to the red white & blue wings.
Glue one side of the garbanzo bean & place on the top of the body & in the crease of the top “v” on the wings.
The kids played, painted & had a great time & so did the mommies. Craft day was fun.
Pasta crafts and activities are a favorite of ours. My daughter & I love working with the different types of pasta. All of the assorted shapes and sizes offer so many possibilities.
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One of our favorite crafts was a fall tree craft using pasta shells. This was a huge hit with my daughter. Moving into the holiday season, I thought that we could do another pasta tree craft, this time with a Christmas theme.
I am a big fan of using dry pasta for crafting. Painted pasta makes for great projects. Here are a few of our favorites.
