One of our favorite spring crafts for kids is making giant paper mache hats! The kids have so much fun creating their own hats from butcher paper and wearing them around all spring!
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I thought it would be fun to welcome spring with one of my favorite spring crafts for kids~ giant paper spring hats! This has been a favorite art project over the years to do with my students, and now I’m enjoying doing it at home with my kids. (This post contains affiliate links. )
Spring Crafts for Kids: Paper Mache Hats
In the past I’ve done these hats many different ways. This project really lends itself to so many creative options. For this particular project, I’m using giant sheets of butcher paper as the main component to the hat. However, I have done it over the years with giant sheets of wrapping paper or sheets of newspaper (later painted when dry). They all work wonderfully!
Materials for Spring Hats
- Giant sheet of butcher paper (or wrapping paper)
- Bowl and paintbrush
- Liquid glue and water
- Masking tape
- Newspaper for stuffing
- Tissue paper or other materials to decorate your hat
Directions for Making Spring Hats
1. Cut your butcher paper into a large circle.
2. Prepare your paper mache mixture of glue and water. (I used about a 1:1 ratio.)
3. Paint the top of your large circle with the mixture.
4. Now it’s time to shape the hat to your child’s head. First, place a DRY sheet of newspaper on top of your child’s head (to protect him or her from getting covered with gluey water.) Then place the wet butcher paper circle on top of the dry newspaper. Gently press the paper around his/her head and wrap a few times with masking tape to hold in place. (The kids always think this part is super fun!)
5. Gently take the hat off, and place it somewhere to dry. I take the newspaper and crumple it up into a ball and stuff it inside the head area to help it keep its shape while drying. Also be sure to play around with the outer part of the hat and get it shaped just the way you want it to dry.
6. Once the hat is dry it’s time to decorate it! Gently pull off the masking tape. Once your hat is dry the tape is no longer necessary to hold the hat’s shape.
7. Decorate your hat any way you want! We did one with tissue paper squares.
How to Make Tissue Paper Flowers
We decorated the other hat with tissue paper flowers!
Cut out two circles from tissue paper.
Place a small dot of glue in the center of circle.
Glue the circles together.
Fold and press the paper together until you like how your flower looks! (It’s really fun to play around with different sizes and colors of circles.)
Tips
- After the hat dries you can add another layer of paper mache and let dry before decorating. This will make it even more sturdy.
- I leave the stuffed newspaper inside while the kids are decorating the hat. This helps protect it from accidental crushing.
- If you are doing this as a class project, it would probably work best doing it small group. I used to always do it in small groups, and it was even better when I had parent volunteers to assist!
Happy Spring!
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Mary Catherine says
March 19, 2013 at 5:36 pmOh my word, these are beyond cute! Thanks for sharing these paper mache hats. 🙂
Mary Catherine of Fun-A-Day!
Kristy says
March 19, 2013 at 5:38 pmI love the hats!!!! You need to do this with Ella! Beautiful accent flowers! Seems easier than the newspaper strips and balloon we’ve used in the past!
Lis says
March 19, 2013 at 7:13 pmHow long does it typically take to dry?
Chelsey says
March 19, 2013 at 7:44 pmWe left ours in the direct sun to dry for only about an hour, but if you don’t have direct sun, it would probably be safest to let it dry overnight.
Savannah says
March 20, 2013 at 4:53 amOH this is too cute! I love it. Please consider sharing this at Look What We Did. I just adore this and cannot wait to try it with my 7 year old. -Savannah http://hammocktracks.com/buttons/
Tracey@We-Made-That says
March 20, 2013 at 11:50 amOh my those came out amazing! So beautiful! Thanks for sharing on We Made That!
Savannah says
March 20, 2013 at 7:36 pmI featured these hats today with a post I made that included 6 spring poems with crafts. I hope it generates a lot of traffic to your blog. I just adore these.
Chelsey says
March 20, 2013 at 9:08 pmThank you so much! I’m trying to bring more poetry into our days here so I’ll have to share them with my children. So appreciative of you sharing our spring hats!
The Monko says
March 22, 2013 at 12:11 pmwow they are lovely. I adore the flowers.
Ginny says
March 22, 2013 at 2:12 pmWhat a great hat. My school has an Easter hat parade later this week. I wonder if any will be as pretty as yours.
Susan Call Hutchison (ReadAloudReadAlong.com) says
March 22, 2013 at 2:32 pmHow fun! I can hear the Irving Berlin song, in the background as I look at this post, “In your Easter bonnet….” Great pictures.
Kimberly says
March 22, 2013 at 3:51 pmI believe I see these in our Derby Day future.
Too fun.
HowtoRunaHomeDaycare says
March 22, 2013 at 4:38 pmPerfect! We’re going to make these for our Easter Parade. What a unique idea! My daughter will love it.
Amy says
March 22, 2013 at 5:15 pmWhat fun! These hats are beautiful. I love art that is functional/semi-functional. The color choices are stunning as well.
Chelsey says
March 24, 2013 at 7:42 pmThank you, Amy~ The kids LOVE running around in them!
Debi and Charly @ Adorned From Above says
March 23, 2013 at 8:25 amVery cute idea. We have a link party called Wednesdays Adorned From Above Blog Hop and would love to have you share this and any other posts with everyone. It runs from Tuesday night through midnight Sunday. We also have a $50.00 Visa Gift Card Giveaway. Here is the link to the party.
http://www.adornedfromabove.com/2013/03/wednesdays-adorned-from-above-blog-hop_19.html
We hope to see you there.
Debi and Charly @ Adorned From Above
Ashley says
March 23, 2013 at 7:07 pmAdorable hats! Thanks for sharing at Mom’s Library!
Anonymous says
March 24, 2013 at 7:55 amThese are such fun! When I taught, we made them every spring! You can use liquid starch instead of paper mache. We also used two sheets of paper; generally gift wrap on top and butcher paper underneath. These hats will last forever!
June says
March 25, 2013 at 5:31 pmThese are wonderful, Chelsey! I have a friend with four girls and will definitely share this link with her!
Chelsey says
March 27, 2013 at 9:27 pmThank you, June! They are so fun to make and to wear!
Allison says
March 29, 2013 at 9:05 pmGorgeous! I’m featuring this on The Sunday Showcase this week!
Chelsey says
March 29, 2013 at 9:26 pmThank you for the feature!
Anna-Leigh says
March 30, 2013 at 6:47 amSuch a cute idea. We might be a bit late for Easter, but my girl loves to accessorize! I’m sure we’ll make these soon!
Chelsey says
April 3, 2013 at 10:08 pmThanks! They were really fun to make, and we loved coming up with ideas to decorate them. Please share yours if you happen to make them!
Carolyn says
April 29, 2013 at 12:50 amI will be proud myself to wear such vibrant and cute hats like these. I will surely make some for my grandchildren.
Amanda says
March 28, 2014 at 8:59 amOh my. My daughter will love this!
Forest Rose says
March 31, 2014 at 5:11 pmOh my! These are darling! I have 3 little girls who would so love to do this! They really turned out great, love all the pretty pictures.
Natalie PlanetSmartyPants says
April 1, 2014 at 7:19 pmLove the pictures in this tutorial! Your daughter is a very patient model 🙂 Thanks for sharing with After School Link Up!
Cassi says
April 5, 2014 at 5:00 pmI love how these are made, so fun! I’ll be sharing this on The Crafty Crow soon!
Jill says
April 6, 2014 at 8:04 pmThis is seriously amazing, it is cute, creative and crafty!
Thank you for stopping by the Thoughtful Spot Weekly Blog Hop this week. We hope to see you drop by our neck of the woods next week!
gina says
April 1, 2015 at 1:12 amI just love these, Chelsey!
Jen Kill says
May 3, 2017 at 10:24 amAbout how big of a circle of paper would you think would be good for an adult sized hat?
Chelsey says
May 3, 2017 at 9:42 pmIf you have a roll of butcher paper at school, I would use the entire width as the diameter of the circle for the hat. Or use a full sheet of newspaper. Have fun! I’d love to see the results! 🙂
Jen Kill says
May 4, 2017 at 10:44 amPerfect! Thanks! We are making them for our Mother’s Day tea party!