Celebrate Chinese New Year With These Fun Crafts

*I originally posted this in January 2011. Updated to 2018.

Central Pa Live Segment

One year Chinese new Year fell very close to my son's birthday. Always a sucker for a theme, I pitched the idea for a Chinese New Year's birthday party and he eagerly agreed. So together, we set about the business of researching fun ideas to incorporate and this is what we came up with.

Our invitations were plain red paper placed in Chinese Lucky money envelopes and then placed in red envelopes written with a gold pen and a simple message-Birthday party, time and date...and asking guests to wear red. Red symbolizes good luck and prosperity for the coming new year in the Chinese and other Asian cultures. It is traditional to give children and friends red envelopes containing new coins or bills.

The decorations were fun to do...lots of hanging red and gold tassels, cut outs of dragons draping across the ceiling and balloons merrily bobbing in the corners and on the chairs. The room was lit with paper lanterns and strings of lights. We used a plain red tablecloth, red paper plates, cups and napkins, and gold plasticware. The birthday boy of course got to wear a special Mandarin hat.

We planned on finger foods, eaten with chopsticks, of course ...Totino's pizza rolls in every flavor, mandarin oranges and bowls of swedish fish (I know not healthy..but it symbolized good luck) followed by a homemade ice cream cake topped with a sparkling candle..our fireworks.

To top it off, we had a Chinese Checker tournament.Then the kids all went home with a Chinese takeout container filled with Chinese New Year gold foil wrapped chocolate coins, a Chinese Yo-Yo, Chinese Character bead bracelets, and a fortune cookie.

Here are some ideas for how you too can get in the spirit.

MAKE A PUG BOOKMARK

Supplies:

Beige, taupe or grey scrapbook paper
Black scrapbook paper
Scrap of pink paper
Google eyes
Glue
Black Sharpie
Instructions: Make a basic corner bookmark starting with a square piece of paper . We used an 8 1/2" square piece.

Then:

1. Fold Paper diagonally.

2. Fold in first corner.

3. Fold in second corner.

4. Unfold both corners and lay flat so that the point is at the top.

5. Fold down top layer of corner. This becomes your pocket.

6. Tuck first corner into pocket.

7. Tuck second corner into pocket.

8. Your pocket is finished.

9. Flip so that the pocket is on top and will fit over the corner of a book so that your decoration will be properly oriented.

Decorate:

MAKE A CHINESE LANTERN

Decoupage is tried and true and nice because it can be translucent.

Supplies:

*Clear jar

*Tissue paper (preferably red)

*ModPodge

*Sponge paintbrush

*Black Sharpie

*Battery operated tea light (optional)

*Ideas for Chinese Characters

Instructions:

*Decoupage the tissue paper onto the jar using the ModPodge.

*Wait to dry and add the Chinese character of your choice. We used "Dog" for 2018.

*Add battery operated tealight.

MAKE A FIRE BREATHING DRAGON

Supplies:

*Empty tube or sturdy craft paper

*Pompoms (we used 2 large for the eyes and 2 small for the nostrils).

*Googly eyes

*Stapler

*Tissue paper or crepe paper

*Straw

*Tape

*Glue gun or glue

Instructions

*Either cover tube with craft paper or MAKE a tube out of sturdy colored card stock.

*Staple if making your own tube

*Cut lengths of paper-we used about 10" pieces long by 2" wide.

*Glue to the inside of one end of the tube.

*Cut the strips of paper in half the length of the strips.

*Glue the pompoms and googly eyes on.

NOW THIS IS THE TRICK TO GETTING THE PAPER TO MOVE WHEN THE CHILD BLOWS!

*Cut the straw so that it is 3" longer than the tube.

*Cut 3 additional strips of paper and tape them around one end of the straw (about 1 1/2" from the end)

*Insert the straw into the dragon tube and tape or glue inside.

*This allows the blowing air to be more concentrated so that the fringe will actually move. I tried it without and got no movement but when we added this, it helps.

*Blow into the straw to make your dragon breathe fire.

For more ideas check out the resources below.

Chinese New Year Pinterest Board

From our Archive:

Shuttlecock - a Chinese New Year Craft

Welcome to the Year of the Sheep!

The Chinese New Year

Chinese New Year February 3rd

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