There are so many amazing crafts with paper plates, and most of them are fairly easy to do. Lots of paper plate crafts only require the addition of paint or felt tips, making them easy crafts to do at home on rainy days, without having to go out and buy lots of things. Here are ten ideas of craft activities you could do with paper plates. Some of them are suitable for children of all ages but a few may require a bit of help with cutting from an adult.
Jellyfish
This one is quite a fancy and does require either some yarn or tissue paper. First of all, paint both the bottom and the top of the plate in your desired colours. You can add some detail with felt tips. Turn the plate upside down. If using yarn, make some small holes with a hole punch or craft knife and tie a small loop through the two holes to hang other pieces of yarn on. Cut several pieces of yarn twice as long as you want and keeping them together, thread them through the loop made early and tie. If you are using tissue paper for the tentacles
Animal faces/masks
The paper plate is the perfect shape for making animal faces. You can easily make a mask by carefully cutting eye holes with a craft knife (it is probably better for an adult to do this!). You can decorate them with paint, and add extra bits of for ears and whiskers (pipe cleaners make good whiskers!). Use a piece of elastic and punch a hole either side to thread it though (much better to punch holes than stick it on). Once the masks are made, enjoy playing with them as your chosen animal!
Fish
For this one, make a cut out for the mouth of your fish. Used the cut out bit for the fin and/or tail. You can paint your fish or use tissues paper to decorate it. Felt tips are good for adding details such as eyes or scales. You can always use stick on eyes if you wish.
Hedgehog
Everyone loves a hedgehog, and this one will get you outdoors too! Probably best to do this in the autumn, as you will need brown coloured leaves to be used for the hedgehog spikes. Cut your paper plate in half, and paint the background in a brown colour, so any gaps not filled with leaves will not appear white. Use one of the corner area to be the face and decorate as desired. You can just decorate one side but it looks amazing if you decorate both side of the plate in the same way. Use some small bit of card as feet and place under the plate, so that the plate can stand upright.
Rainbow
Cut the plate in half so you have a rainbow shape. This one is great to do with young children when teaching colours. You can paint the different arches or use tissue paper to make your rainbow.
Watermelon
Cut your paper plates in half, paint the outer edge a dark green and the inner and pinky red colour. You can then draw some black dots on afterwards for the seeds.
Donut
This one requires quite a tricky cut. You need to cut the middle of the paper plate out so you are left with a ring Donut shape. Paint or tissue paper to decorate in your chosen colours. You can even glue on some real hundreds and thousand or just draw then on with felt tip pens.
Tortoise
Turn your plate upside down. Paint the plate a light green then using felt tips, draw some wobbly rectangle shapes to create the pattern of a tortoise shell. Fill them in with a darker green paint or felt tip. Use some bits of green card to attach a head and feet.
Minibeasts
Using the plate in and upside down position, paint and decorate it and your chosen Minibeasts. You can use pipe cleaners to add antennae and legs.
Flower
Flowers are a perfect spring activity with paper plates. Use the outside rippled part of the plate, cut out rectangle like shapes, leaving some in place to be the petals. Decorate the middle of the flower with paint or tissue paper. Sunflowers work really well with the paper plate as they have a larger centre. You could attach a bamboo stick and some card shaped leaves and make a stem.
There are many other craft activities you can do with a paper plate, all you need is your imagination!
