My niece and nephew came to visit the other day, they call my house the making house. My niece came in the door dragging this massive teddy bear behind her and asked if we could make a picture or something of her bear. However, my nephew just wanted some paper plates to make a craft that moves or does something. I decided to combine the two and came up with this pop up ted In a bed. I loved how different each one turned out. My son decorated his with blocks of colour, my niece decorated hers with spots and my nephew drew a dinosaur quilt. They all look great! the best part is they’re really simple to make.
You will need
2 paper plates 2 popsicle sticks Pens or paint Googly eyes 1 sheet of Pink & Brown card Black marker Pva Glue scissors
Take one of your paper plates and cut it in half, this will be the bears blanket. Using pens or paints, Decorate your blanket.
Once dry, turn your blanket over and apply glue as the above lines show, stick it down on your other paper plate so that the edges line up. Make sure to leave a gap at the bottom big enough for your popsicle stick!
Take your brown (or painted brown!) Card and cut out a bear shape
Add facial features to your bear. We cut out the inner ears and nose from pink paper, glued on two googly eyes and used a black marker for the mouth and arms. Glue two popsicle sticks end to end and then glue the bear centrally on one end.
Thread your popsicle stick down inside the quilt and through the hole that you left in your paper plates.
you may find that the popsicle sticks are catching on the plate. If so turn your plates over and make a small slit in the bottom of the back paper plate where the popsicle stick is.
Your Pop up ted in a bed is finished and looks super sweet! My son loves using his for singing 10 in the bed, this would be great for nursery song time with multiple bears!
Ok, so Halloween is a little way off yet. However, I absolutely love Halloween, it’s so much fun making the crafts and decorating the house every year. We often find though that the weeks leading up to Halloween pass so quickly and we never end up making Much. So this year we’re starting early with our DIY face flipping pumpkin craft! They’re so much fun to make and you can do any faces you like. My 3yo really enjoyed making these and playing with them too!
What you will need
2 paper plates Orange paint A paintbrush or painting sponge Scissors 2 sheets of black card 1 sheet of green card (or white card painted green will work fine!) A glue gun or PVA glue
Take two paper plates. Fold one in half and glue it to the other paper plate so that the edges are touching and the fold is halfway up the base plate.
Paint the front of your plates in a pumpkin orange, remember to lift up the flap and paint the second plate too! you may wish to do a second coat if you want fuller coverage.
Take your black card and cut out the shapes for your first pumpkin face. with the flap folded down, use a glue gun or pva to stick the face in place. whilst you wait for your pumpkin to dry, take your card again and cut out the shapes for your second face.
Lift the folded paper plate and stick your second pumpkin face on this lower paper plate
For the finishing touches, take some green (or painted green) card and cut out a stalk shape. Glue it to the back of your base paper plate at the top of your pumpkin
And that’s it! how cute is this DIY face flipping pumpkin craft? I’d love to see how yours turned out. you can share them with me on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest or by email!
You might notice that this page has had a bit of a refresh! We made this cute paper plate baby elephant over a year ago but decided the other day that it was time that we made another as my sons old one met an unfortunate fate at the hands of his baby sister, oops! Looking back at the post which was actually one of my first craft ones I realised just how difficult to follow my guide was and how much simpler the craft could be. So, I decided it was time for an update! This sweet little craft is still one of my favourites we always have so much fun making them and they just look adorable.
Why not use your paper plate elephant as a mask?
To use your paper plate elephant as a mask, just cut out two eye holes rather than sticking on two eyes. Then glue on a lollipop stick at the bottom of your elephant so that it can be held.
Here’s what we used
Paper plate Paper (we used black, white, blue/grey and pink) Blue/grey paint paint Glue Paintbrushes Scissors
Take your paper plate and cover it in blue paint, you may need to do two coats to get a good coverage
Cut out two long strips to make the trunk. Our strips were quite short at A4 length so we ended out cutting out four and gluing two together. Take your strips and glue them together at a right angle.
Accordian fold your strips into a spring by taking turns folding one over the top of the other. Once you reach the end, secure the two loose ends with glue
Now you’ll need to make two eyes and a snout for your elephant. To make our eyes, we used two large white circles for the white of the eye, two slightly smaller black circles for the pupils and two small white circles for the light spots. The snout we made by cutting out an oval the same colour as our elephant and gluing on two pink ovals for nostrils.
To make the ears, cut out two large B shapes from your elephant coloured paper. Then glue a smaller pink B shape on each to make the inner ears.
You could optionally also cut out a pink smiley mouth
Now it’s time to bring all of your pieces together! Glue the ears either side on the back of your paper plate, your eyes near the top and your mouth at the bottom. Then, glue one end of your spring centrally between your elephants eyes and mouth and glue the snout to the loose end of your spring.
Your paper plate baby elephant is finished, Isn’t he just adorable? We loved ours.
