DLTK's Holiday Crafts for Kids
Chinese New Year Crown or Hat

A simple construction paper 'hat' the kids have fun making, decorating and wearing!  We like making tissue paper flowers to decorate it, but you can use markers, stickers, glitter or gel pens instead.

Materials:

• red construction paper,
• 2 gold pipe cleaners
• pencil,
• scissors,
• tape,
• printer,
• paper,
• gold tissue paper,
• gold thread (or white)
• Optional:  stickers, markers, glitter or gel pens to decorate

Instructions:

• Print template of choice.
• Color as necessary (if using the B&W version).
• Cut out the template pieces
• OR freehand cut 4 winter shapes from construction paper.
• Cut 2 or 3 strips of construction paper about 4" wide and as long as you can make them.
• Tape the pieces end to end to make a really long piece.
• Wrap around the child's head to measure how long you need and trim off the excess (don't tape into a circle yet).
• Make 5 or 6 tissue paper flowers and tape to the front of the crown:
  • stack 3 or 4 squares of tissue paper on top of each other (size should be about 4"x4")
  • fan fold (accordion fold) the tissue paper.
  • tie tightly in the center with a piece of thread
  • separate the layers one at a time
  • roll a piece of scotch tape to attach the flower to the front of the crown (long construction paper strip).
• Wrap the pipecleaner around a pencil to make a 'spring' with it.  An adult can wrap the first couple loops and then hand it over to the child to finish.
• Straighten about 1/2 inch of the top and bottom of the spring (so it's easier to do the taping).
• Repeat with the other pipecleaner.
• Take the template that you chose from below cut out each of the templates.   Fold one in half so that the front and back are the same.   Sandwich a pipe cleaner in between the front and back and use a little glue or tape to hold the two sides together.   Repeat with the other pipe cleaner.
• Tape both pipecleaners to the long piece of construction paper so they either sit at the front of the head or the sides of the head.
• Tape the construction paper ends together to form a crown and put it on!

Craft Templates:

• Close template window when done printing to return to this screen.
• Set page margins to zero if you have trouble fitting the template on one page (FILE, PAGE SETUP or FILE, PRINTER SETUP in most browsers).

Dog   (color)   or   (B&W)

Dragon  (color)   or   (B&W)

Horse  (color)   or   (B&W)

Monkey  (color)   or   (B&W)

Ox  (color)   or   (B&W)

Pig  (color)   or   (B&W)

Rabbit  (color)   or   (B&W)

Rat  (color)   or   (B&W)

Rooster  (color)   or   (B&W)

Sheep  (color)   or   (B&W)

Snake  (color)   or   (B&W)

Tiger  (color)   or   (B&W)

Printable version of these instructions