One fun way to celebrate Chinese New Year with children is with a fun craft. Today we are sharing how to make this awesome cupcake liner dragon craft that makes a perfect Chinese New Year activity for kids. You could also use it as an alphabet craft for the letter D. Young ones might need a little assistance but it is a fun craft that kids of varying ages will all enjoy. Find some Chinese New Year book recommendations at the bottom of this post.
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Supplies needed:
- black and white cardstock
- mini cupcake liners (We used red, orange and blue but you can use any colors you want to.)
- googly eyes
- gold cardstock
- red yarn
- orange and yellow tissue paper
- red marker
- scissors
- glue
Tutorial:
1. Make dragon body
Begin by cutting about eight mini cupcake liners in half. Glue one of the cupcake liner halves onto your black cardstock paper, towards the top with the round curve pointed at the left of the page. This is the start of your dragon body. Continue gluing and layering the cupcake liners halves down your page to form your dragon body. You can add a curve in your dragon of leave it straight down the page, it’s up to you.
2. Make dragon head
Now make your dragon head. You’ll need two cupcake liners. Cut one of them in half (discard the other half) and fold the other liner in half. Cut the sides off of both of these pieces (see picture below). Glue the two pieces together to make a dragon head making sure the folded section opens and closes at the bottom of the face.
3. Connect head to the body
Glue your dragon head onto the front of your dragon body. Cut horns from your gold cardstock and glue them onto your dragon. Cut out white teeth and glue them on the inside of the dragon mouth.
4. Make fire for the mouth
Cut out a few small pieces of orange and yellow tissue paper and glue them onto the inside of your dragon mouth. Crinkle the ends of the tissue a little to look like fire coming out of the dragon’s mouth. Add a bit of glue on top of the tissue paper and glue the dragons mouth shut.
5. Draw nostrils & glue yarn
Finish your cupcake liner dragon craft by drawing nostrils on your dragon with a red marker and then glue two short strands of red yarn coming off of the dragon face like long whiskers.
