Nothing says summer like cotton candy, caramel apples, and big pretzels…even if they are made of paper! As an ode to summer, I’m doing a week of popsicle stick crafts….as in, eat a popsicle, then make something with that beautiful wooden stick!

While there is just one popsicle stick in this grouping, all of these foods have summer written all over them.

What you’ll need:

• Brown paper grocery bags

• Tacky glue

• White, red, and yellow paint

• Paintbrushes

• 1 brown paper lunch bag

• Newspaper

• 1 popsicle stick

• 1 square cracker box

• Scallop scissors

• Red crayon

• Resealable gallon-size plastic bag

• Packing peanuts

• 10 to 12 cotton balls

• Cookie sheet lined with wax paper

• Spray bottle

• Blue food coloring

• Washi tape

• Cardboard

• Magazines

Make It:

Pretzel:

1 Cut a grocery bag into 3-inch-wide strips and glue them together to make a 24-inch-long piece.

2 Roll and crumple the strip into a rope shape, being sure to keep any labels or writing on the inside.

3 Fold the tube into a U shape, then bend the ends toward the bottom of the U, twist them, and glue them down, crisscrossed. (You may want to put the pretzel under a medium-heavy book until it dries.)

4 Paint white dots on as the salt.

Candy Apple:

1. Cut about 3 inches off the top of the lunch bag and discard the top piece.

2 Fill the bag with newspaper and glue it shut around the Popsicle stick. Shape the bag into a round apple shape.

3 Paint the outside of the bag red and let it dry.

Popcorn:

1 Unfold the cracker box. Measure 7 to 8 inches from the bottom folds to where the top of the popcorn box will be, and cut a line straight across with scallop scissors.

2 Paint the inside surface (nonprinted side) of the box white. Let it dry.

3 Color red stripes vertically on the painted side of the box with the crayon.

4 Reassemble and glue the box so that the decorated side is on the outside.

5 To make the popcorn, squeeze a quarter-size dollop of yellow paint into the resealable bag, add enough packing peanuts to fill the cracker box, and shake. Start with a little paint; you can always add more.

6 Set the popcorn out to dry on a sheet of newspaper. Once the popcorn is dry, fill your box.

Cotton Candy:

1 Unroll about ten cotton balls onto the wax-paper-lined cookie sheet.

2 Fill the spray bottle with water and about ten drops of blue food coloring. Spray the cotton and let it dry.

3 Pull the cotton apart slightly and make a wad to form the shape of the cotton candy.

4 Cut a circle with a 12-inch diameter from a grocery bag. Cut this circle into four quarters. Take one of these quartercircles, roll it into a cone, and glue. Cut across the top, open end to make a straight edge.

5 Stripe the paper cone with washi tape.

6 Fill with cotton candy.

Pizza:

1 Cut a triangle from cardboard, with two long sides of about 7 inches and a short side of about 5 inches. The short side of the triangle (the crust side of the pizza) should be slightly rounded.

2 Give your pizza some tomato sauce by painting the cardboard red and let it dry.

3 To make the crust, roll and crumple a 4-inch-wide-by-7-inchlong strip of brown grocery bag into a tubelike shape and glue it across the rounded edge of the pizza. Trim or glue any excess underneath.

4 Paint a 10-by-10-inch piece of newspaper yellow on both sides. Once it’s dry, fringe 1⁄4-inch strips of the paper (see the Fringing lesson on page 120) and then cut across to make tiny strips, about 1 inch long.

5 Cut pepperoni and peppers (or whatever toppings you like) from magazine pages in the appropriate colors.

6 Brush watered-down glue (in about a 1-to-1 ratio) onto the cardboard, then sprinkle the “cheese” on top. Glue the toppings on top of the cheese.

This group of projects is from my first book, Project Kid…and there are tons more fun ones where that came from! Buy the book, and never lose a link!

August 20, 2019| Everyday Crafts, Older Elementary, Paper, Preschool, Upcycled