Paper Plate Christmas Elves
Create a gang of cute Christmas elves out of paper plates, construction paper and a few basic craft materials.
Featured Crafts
Supplies Needed
- Small paper plates
- Construction paper (white, red, green)
- Crepe paper (brown, black, yellow or orange)
- Tempera or poster paint (brown, white, black)
- Paint brush
- Crayons or markers
- Scissors
- White glue
- Pompoms
- Wiggle eyes
- Craft sticks (optional)
STEPS
1Create a pair of ears.
Start out with a small paper plate for the elf's head. With the size of the head in mind, draw and cut out a pair of pointy elf ears out of construction paper or cardboard.
2Glue the ears.
Glue or tape the ears on opposite sides of the paper plate.
3Paint the paper plate.
Flip the paper plate so that the bottom side is facing up. Use tempera or poster paint to color this side of the plate, including the ears. Give your Christmas elf any skin coloring you like. I made a light-colored skin tone by mixing a bit of brown to white paint. For darker skin tones, add a bit of black to brown paint.
4Glue the eyes and nose.
Once the paint dries, glue a pair of wiggle eyes and a fluffy pompom nose.
5Draw a mouth.
Using crayons or markers, draw a mouth. You can also draw some detail on the ears.
6Create a hat.
Draw and cut out three construction paper shapes:
- Triangle - the hat's main part
- Small circle - the hat's topper
- Zigzag piece - the hat's bottom border. Draw and cut out a strip 1½" to 2" wide and slightly longer than the triangle's base. Cut a zigzag on one long edge of the strip.
7Glue the hat.
Glue the hat parts together—the zigzag piece at the bottom of the triangle and the small circle at the tip of the hat. Glue the hat on the elf's head.
8Create hair.
Make hair out of crepe paper. Cut out crepe paper into short strips and crumple them up. Glue them at the sides of the paper plate just below the hat.
9Let the glue dry.
This completes the basic steps for making a paper plate Christmas elf. Make several of them as cute Christmas décor.
More crafting ideas can be found in the section below.
More Ideas
Decorate the hat.
Before gluing the hat parts together in Step 6, decorate the triangle with stripes, dots, swirls or other patterns. You can draw them with crayons or markers or glue paper shapes on the hat.
Give the elf lots of character.
Give your Christmas elf lots of character by making interesting facial expressions like this very sleepy elf. You can also play around with its hairstyle and decorate its hat with sequins, rhinestones or little bells.
Add a handle.
Transform your paper plate Christmas elf into a stick puppet or mask by gluing a wooden dowel at the back. You can also glue 2 craft sticks end-to-end to make the long handle like I did.
