We have just the craft idea to help your kids celebrate Lunar or Chinese New Year! Check out our tutorial for making a Chinese New Year drum craft out of a paper plate.
It’s a perfect craft that allows your kids to get as creative as they want to be, as there are so many ways they can decorate their paper plate drum. They can stick with traditional colors (red, gold, yellow, orange, and such) or go in a completely different direction to make theirs.
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Paper plate crafts are so versatile; you can make all kinds of animals and other objects suitable for every holiday! This drum is perfect for the Lunar New Year and goes well with a paper plate Chinese dragon puppet we made a while ago.
You can also add rice to this drum, making it a drum rattle.
How to Make the Chinese New Year Drum Craft
What you need:
- scissors
- stapler
- two paper plates
- paints
- paintbrush
- yarn
- two beads
- something to make the handle with – a straw or a long craft stick
Step by Step Tutorial
Start by having the kids paint both of the paper plates.
We made ours with more traditional colors and painted the paper plates red.
Allow the paint to dry completely.
Once the paint is dry, you can have kids add more details to their drum. Use gold (or any paint they choose) to create festive and decorative motives on the plate.
They can let their imagination flow and draw traditional Chinese New Year symbols like dragons, lanterns, or Chinese characters.
We really love gold paint for this project.
If they wish, they can also skip the decorations (or use stickers instead of painting their own).
You can even have them “layer” designs. We added a big circle to ours.
This adds a drum look to it more.
We decorated our drum by painting circles around the edge. It’s OK to make this one busy.
Paint both plates with the same decorations or different ones.
Now let’s assemble the drum.
Cut a long yarn string and place it between the paper plates. Secure it in place with glue, tape or staples.
It should be placed right in the middle.
The drum also needs a handle. Use a straw, a craft stick, or something similar and stick it on the paper plate (secure with tape or glue, depending on the material).
Glue or staple the paper plates together. Apply glue along the edges of one paper plate and align it with the other one. Or just staple all around.
If you are using a stapler this part needs to be done by an adult (or with strict adult supervision).
We recommend you staple the thread, and the straw (if you used a straw).
Next, attach a bead on each side of the thread.
Secure the beads by making a knot on each end.
The Chinese New Year drum craft is ready for the kids to enjoy!
How did your kids paint their Chinese New Year drum?
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