We are big fans of paper plate crafts in our home. They are cheap, readily available & make great canvases for painting, markers or glue. They are also more durable than paper, so the crafts hold up longer. There are so many great possibilities & ideas. Here is an assortment of some of our favorite paper plate crafts.
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If you read my last post, you know that my fickle little artist changed her mind just as we were about to make a paper plate octopus the other day. Today, Mai must have had another change of heart because she was ready for those paper plate crafts tonight.
“What do you want to make?”
“I want rain & sunshine and a rainbow and all the clouds.”
Great idea!
Paper Plate Rain & Rainbow Crafts
What you will need:
Paper Plates
Construction Paper (yellow & orange)
Yellow Paint
Blue Pom Poms
Needle & Thread
Tissue Paper in all of the colors of the rainbow
Glue
Cotton Balls
Markers
Directions:
Paint paper plate in yellow & let dry. (If you are going to make both crafts, paint 2 plates)
Cut triangle shapes out of yellow & orange paper.
After the plate dries, draw in a happy face for your sun.
Flip the plate over & glue the beams in place & let dry.
Cut a different paper plate in half & glue cotton balls to the top of it & let dry. Use the other half for the next craft.
String the pom poms up with needle & thread. Form a few strands & space out the pom poms to form rain drops. Attach to the back of your cloud.
Glue to the side of the sunshine.
For the rainbow craft, repeat all of the steps above except for threading the pom poms. Instead cut out strips of tissue in each color of the rainbow. Cut 2 strips of each color & glue to the back of your cloud.
When we finished Mai looked at me & said “Silly Mama, you forgot to make the spout & the spider.” Apparently, she wanted this to be an Itsy Bitsy Spider craft.
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We are sort of a family of nerds. My husband and I are both science fiction fans & enjoy the supernatural. Mai must be following in our footsteps because she has become more & more interested in monsters & aliens lately. Tonight we made paper plate & bowl UFOs.
What you will need:
2 Paper plates
1 Paper bowl
Craft pom poms
Pipe cleaners
Acrylic paint & glue
Directions:
Cut out the center of one of the paper plates.
Place it over the paper bowl & make sure that it fits over it enough. Trim the center more if needed.
Cut a small fold-down flap on the bowl for a door. Glue the bowl to the top of the whole paper plate & fit & glue the cut plate over the bowl.
Paint your UFO. We painted the base in silver,
Mai added her own designs in different colored paints & added her own special touches.
Together we glued the pom poms around the outside of our saucer.
We folded & twisted 3 pipe cleaners in half & bent both ends to use as legs for our space ship.
We glued the legs on & let the project dry. Mai loved the opening to her space ship. She used it to store more pom poms for later.
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Paper Plate Carousel
What you will need:
2 Paper plates
Paper bowl
Paper towel roll
Construction paper
4 Wooden sticks, straws or any straight rigid object
A piece of egg carton
Acrylic paint
Glue gun
Directions:
Draw a circle in the center of both paper plates & the paper bowl & then cut it out.
Cut the outside edge off of one of the paper plates.
Draw the outline of a horse. Cut out the outline & use it as a template to cut out 7 more. Cut 2 of each color for a total of 8.
Paint all the paper plate & bowl pieces on the back side & the paper towel roll. Let all pieces dry. Trim the paper towel roll. We took about 1/3 of the roll off.
Slide the full-sized paper plate onto the bottom of the paper towel roll with the bottom side facing up. Squeeze a bead of glue around where the paper towel roll & plate meet.
Glue the cut plate over the top.
Place the paper bowl over the top of the paper towel roll until flush & squeeze a bead of glue around the two to secure into place. Measure your sticks from the base of your project to the bottom of the bowl. With a glue gun dab a circle of glue onto the cut plate. Let cool for a minute or two & insert the stick into the glue & hold in place until the glue hardens. Do this for the other 3 sticks.
Squeeze glue on the underside of the bowl & place the bowl over the sticks & hold in place.
Grab 2 matching horse cutouts & glue the back half together. Wrap the open part around the stick & glue the opposite end together until it is secured. Do this with the rest of the cut-outs.
Glue an egg carton piece to the top opening over the paper bowl & paper towel roll.
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Tomorrow is finally March. We can kiss February goodbye & start the countdown to the spring. I feel as if it is all that I can think about. I am over the cold & snow and am longing for the outdoors. The snow may melt in the spring, but it is not without its weather challenges too. April showers bring May flowers & the showers certainly do fall. Here is a cute umbrella craft that you can do to welcome in the spring & its raindrops.
All you will need is a paper plate, paint, a pipe cleaner, a straw & glue
Cut a paper plate so that there are 6 pie sections. Cut so that there is an uncut circle in the center. Poke a hole through the center with a pipe cleaner & pull the cleaner back out.
Paint the bottom side of the plate. Paint each segment in a different color. Let dry.
Using a glue gun, glue the edge of one piece of the pie. Overlap it slightly with the next pie segment. Continue all the way around.
Poke the pipe cleaner through the top again. Form a loop and push the point back through the center again, keeping the loop on top and the end on the inside of the umbrella. Push a straw of the same color over the pipe cleaner until it reaches the top. Add a dab of hot glue to the inside center. Let it cool for about 30 seconds and then push the straw into the glue. Curve the bottom of the pipe cleaner to form the handle.
Share your umbrella with a friend.
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For somebody that was as eager for the holiday season to begin as I was, I was a little behind in putting up our Christmas decorations. It had been a busy few weeks, but we finally found an evening to put up our Christmas tree.
The first year that my husband & I started dating we purchased our first Christmas tree as a couple. We put it up in my apartment. We spiked some eggnog, put in the movie Elf and decorated the tree together. Eight Christmases later & we are still doing the same thing. Now we just have an extra set of hands & there is one smaller glass of eggnog minus the rum added into the mix.
We let Mai do most of the decorating this year with a few boosts from mommy & daddy. She did a lovely job.
We also added a new elf tradition to our holidays. Last year my sister bought Mai an Elf on the shelf for Christmas. Tonight I read her the elf’s story. She listened, intrigued by his tale, nodding in between sentences as to say that she understood. She named her Elf “Koontz”. She whispered to him that she would like a train set. Forgive me if the next few weeks are filled with pictures of our sneaky little visitor.
In the midst of all of our new & old traditions, Mai asked me if we could make a project. She loves working on projects. Since we were surrounding ourselves with elves, I figured why not one more.
Paper Plate Elf Mask
What you will need:
Paper Plate
Paint
Foam sheets or construction paper
Cotton balls
Glue
Pipe cleaners
Pencil
Directions:
Draw eyes on the back of your paper plate & cut them out.
Paint your plate in flesh tone. Let dry.
Paint on two pink circles for cheeks.
Paint a mouth and nose.
Cut out shapes for the hat, ears and collar. You may use construction paper. I always opt for foam sheets though as they do not rip or wrinkle. Glue into place.
Bend 4 pipe cleaners into curls as shown.
Glue the curls to the edge of the hat. Draw on eyelashes & eyebrows with a marker or paint.
Glue two pipe cleaners to the back of the mask. Use the pipe cleaners to secure the mask to your head.
Glue cotton balls to the rim of the hat & to the end of it to form the fur.
My daughter loves to pretend play. She has a vivid imagination & it is fun watching her explore her world of make believe. She loves to play baker and bake us beautiful cakes. She will take the little cherries out of he Hi Ho Cherry-o game and decorate her stacking cups with them and make tiered cakes. Last week when I didn’t feel good she made me a bowl of chicken soup complete with ABC magnets & a plastic drumstick. Delicious!
One of her favorite cartoons is Sheriff Callie. She has a cowboy hat that she wears & a pink hamper that she calls Sparky her horse. Giddy Up Sparky.
She loves wearing dresses & twirling around & saying “Look Mama, I look like a princess.” Yes you do.
With her growing interest with the world of dress up & make believe, I thought we could have a little dress up fun.
Paper Plate Wig Mask.
What you will need:
Paper plates
Yarn
Glue
Pipe cleaner or string
Scissors
Directions:
And for the boys…
It was not the nicest weekend. Most of my outdoor plans were thwarted by soggy grass & too many bugs. We planned to go to the local kid gymnasium, but when we got there they never opened. Instead, we went to one of our favorite places, the library. We love the library. With all three of us being such avid readers, we would bankrupt ourselves buying new books. The library offers us an unlimited supply of great reads for each of us.
