Paper Plate Dinosaur Craft

Paper Plate Dinosaurs are the perfect craft for toddlers...especially if you have a friend over to play. They allow for creativity, individuality, and they aren't too frustrating for little hands to finish.

All you need is:

• Paper plates
• Scissors
• Paint or markers
• Construction paper
• Glue stick
• Googly eyes

1. Cut the paper plates in half and hand each kid a half. 
2. Get them painting or coloring and cut out legs, tails and heads in coordinating colored construction paper. I just free-handed these.
3. When the plate is dry, have them glue the head, legs and tail to their dinosaur.
4. Add googly eyes and draw on a mouth.
   
5. You're done! Admire the cute little dinosaurs :)

Thank you I Heart Arts and Crafts for the fun idea! I'm linking up to the Happiness is Homemade link party.

Kids Craft: Paper Plate Submarine

This post is entirely dedicated to getting the song "We All Live in a Yellow Submarine" stuck in your head...just kidding ;).

This was a fun craft to do with my daughter because it used a few different art mediums...paint, markers, ripping/cutting paper, glue. I found the idea at Red Ted Art and made a few modifications to her submarine.

Patriotic Paper Plate Spinner

Happy Birthday America! Have your kids get ready by making these patriotic paper plate spinners...

Paper Plate Snowman

We finally got some snow recently and my 2 year old had so much fun sledding! Sadly, it was not snowman snow, so she has yet to experience making a snowman, but we got creative and made a paper plate snowman inside.

All you need to make your snowman is a paper plate, black construction paper, pom poms, orange foam or construction paper, and white school glue.

I cut out all the shapes we needed and put some glue on the plate...

Then she placed all of the pieces on the glue dots. You could definitely be more adventurous and let your toddler pour the glue themselves or place the pieces wherever they want, but this was fun for both of us so I'll call it a win.

Paper Plate Caterpillars

My boys are finding caterpillars and other bugs everywhere, so this was the perfect craft for us one afternoon. Even my daughter (almost 2) enjoyed making her own paper plate caterpillar!

I just cut a paper plate in half and cut along the raised portion if that makes any sense.  I cut one for each of us and we all colored our caterpillars in various patterns/colors. Then we cut out construction paper legs & heads.

This was fun for all ages in our home (mom, 9 year old, 7 year old & almost 2 year old)! Thank you Glued to My Craft for the cute idea!

Paper Plate Snowmen

We have yet to have anything even remotely resembling snow around here this winter, so we have to take snowmen in whatever form we can get them…

The other day, in searching for a quick, relatively clean craft I came up with paper plate snowmen. Both of my boys loved it and this is an activity that can be modified for any age from painting, to gluing, etc! I just used my trusty sticky tack to hold the plates to the doors and let my boys color away :)

I’ll be linking up to What Are Little Boys Made Of?, Preschool Corner Friday, and Works for Me Wednesday, Kids Get Crafty.

Sock Snowman

I saw these sock snowmen on a friend’s blog last year and can’t even link to it since the blog is no longer there, but the idea is adorable and super easy…

Fill a long sock with rice and tie it into 3 sections to create your snowman. Add buttons, a scarf, a hat, or whatever you want to make your snowman unique. I like to think of my sock snowman as French with his beret, scarf and sunglasses :).

I’ll be linking up to Works For Me Wednesday.

Paper Plate Snake and Crab

After seeing Live, Learn, Love’s paper plate snake, I knew this would be a simple, fun craft for K and I. All we had to do was color the plate, then I drew a spiral for K to cut along. Voila! A snake :). Apparently these look pretty cool if you hang it over a candle because the air makes it spin, but K wouldn’t let me try it…

To go along with our snakes, for whatever reason K insisted on a crab too, so we colored a plate red, cut out pinchers and legs and glued them on…

Now I’m totally on the lookout for other paper plate animals…what have you made out of paper plates?

Bottle Cap Snowman Ornaments

Are you ready for an onslaught of Christmas/holiday related crafts and gift ideas? I hope so because it’s already started! Have I mentioned my husband never thought I would turn crafty on him? Apparently I wasn’t crafty before I started blogging. Luckily he still loves me :)

Back to the topic at hand…Bottle Cap Snowman Ornaments! These are simple, cute and cheap (my favorite).
All you need are:

• Bottle caps. 3 to each snowman unless you want to make mutant snowmen for your younger brother or something…
• White paint
• Something to color with. I used a sharpie and orange highlighter
• Glue gun
• Ribbon

Start by making sure your bottle caps are clean and dry.
Give them a few coats of white paint, allowing to dry between each coat especially if you have cheap paint like me.
Fold a little bit of ribbon into a loop and hot glue that to the top of one of your bottle caps on the back. Add another dab of glue at the bottom. Glue the ribbon to two more bottle caps and trim the end. I like having a bit of ribbon show between each cap to add color.
Draw cute snowman faces and button on your ornaments and adorn your tree with cuteness! Sorry, is that too girly? My faces/buttons are a little crooked because I drew them on before gluing…yah, draw them on after the ribbon is glued on.
I’m linking up to Get Your Craft On @ Today’s Creative Blog, Nifty Thrifty Tuesdays @ Coastal Charm, Lucky Linky Tuesday @ Lucky Star Lane, Toot Your Horn Tuesday @ A Silly Little Sparrow, Tip Me Tuesday @ Tip Junkie’s, Polka Dots and Pizza. and Show Me Your Bush.

Cotton Snowman

Trendy Treehouse had a post on making a cotton ball snowman and I decided to do one today with K while C was napping. It was so much fun, and K was so proud, though you can't tell from the picture.

I drew a snowman and put glue dots inside the circles. On the top two circles, K experimented with ripping the cotton balls into smaller pieces, and on the bottom one he just stuck the balls on whole. He then learned how effective glue can be when he tried to redo some of it :)

I colored and cut out eyes, nose and a mouth and he helped place them on the glue. He then had to help color a hat and we made several different ones until we had one that was just right.

I love projects like this because it's so easy to adapt them for different ages, so I think this will be redone in years to come.

And now for a heart melting smile from C...