Here’s a holiday craft that you and your child can enjoy for years to come. Your child will lace her way around the paper plates, boosting her manual dexterity and hand-eye coordination. Counting to ten, drawing shapes, and tying knots are useful skills that come into play as well. This one will be a keeper in your family’s collection of holiday decorations.
What You Need:
- Large paper plate
- Small paper plate
- Hole punch
- Yarn or ribbon, about 2-3 yards total
- Tape
- 2 blue chenille stems
- Festive ribbon or scrap of fabric for the scarf
- Black construction paper or black marker
- Orange craft foam or felt
- Red felt or craft foam
- 2 black buttons
- Safety scissors
- Craft glue
What You Do:
- Start by punching holes equidistant from each other all the way around the rim of the large and small plates. Older children can do this with your guidance, but if you have a younger child, you may want to do this part ahead of time and let him do the decorating and lacing. Make sure there is an even number of holes on each plate.
- Holding the large plate face down, your child can thread the yarn through the holes by sending the yarn up through one hole and down through another. Repeat until all of the holes are laced.
- Help your younger child tie a knot at the end and cut the yarn.
- Ask your child to repeat steps 1 through 3 with the small plate.
- Now lay the small plate above the large plate, like a snowman. Punch a hole in the bottom rim of the small plate and a corresponding hole in the top of the large plate.
- To connect both plates together, take a short length of yarn and thread it through the holes from the underside and tie a knot. Trim the yarn.
- Next, ask your child to draw a carrot nose out of orange craft foam. Have him cut the nose out and set it aside.
- Have your child punch ten holes into black construction paper and save the little circles. These will be used to create the mouth. A black marker, miniature buttons, and black gem stickers will work, too.
- For the mittens, ask your child to draw them onto scratch paper and then trace them onto red felt or craft foam. Have him cut them out.
- It’s time to decorate the snowman’s face! Ask your child to glue on two black buttons for eyes, the orange craft foam triangle for the nose, and the ten circles for the smile.
- Take a piece of festive ribbon or scrap fabric and carefully thread it through the loop created by the yarn that connects both plates. Tie a knot and let the ends dangle like a scarf.
- To create arms, twist one end of a chenille stick around the end of the other to form one long stick.
- Tape the center of the stick to the undecorated side of the plate, letting it protrude from either side several inches.
- Glue the felt mittens onto the chenille stick and set it down to dry for at least 30 minutes.
- Punch two holes at the top of the small plate and thread a short length of yarn through them and tie a knot so that you have a loop to hang the snowman.
Ta-da! The snowman is ready to display! Now that’s cool winter décor that even Frosty would adore!
Add your own comment