Do you ever have craft supplies laying around and you aren’t sure what to do with it? Popsicle sticks are one of those craft items for me, I’m never sure what to do with them, but I have so many popsicle sticks! I finally decided to use a craft with popsicle sticks when my niece and nephew were visiting recently. Popsicle sticks are so versatile and you can make a lot of quick, fun crafts with them. A craft with popsicle sticks doesn’t require a lot of time, preparation, or other craft items to be able to make awesome reusable crafts.
Popsicle craft ideas will help your child to develop their fine motor skills, imagination, creativity, and the crafts can be used again and again. Allowing children to practice gluing popsicle sticks together or putting eyes on popsicle sticks will help their fine motor skills. A few of the crafts required coloring which is always a fun way for kids to express creativity.
Using your imagination will be necessary with this popsicle stick arts as you create flying dragonflies and snakes. The pop stick craft that was the most fun to play with was the catapults. My son and his cousins loved competing against each other with their catapults to see how far their balls could fly through the air or if they could knock over block towers they built.
5 Ice Cream Stick Craft Ideas
Here are 5 great ideas that are easy and fun for kids to make. Whether you have toddlers, preschoolers, or elementary school kids, these are great projects that promote creativity.
1. Catapult
The first craft we did was catapults which the kids loved so much! The kids spent over an hour playing with the catapults after we made them. Their favorite game was to line up their catapults, put the balls in the spoons, and then launch the balls as far as they could. They also loved trying to knock down the block towers they built with their catapults.
This ice cream stick craft was so easy to make because I used materials that I already had laying around my house. This craft only requires 4 materials: popsicle sticks, rubber hands or hair bands, plastic spoons, and bouncy balls. I used hair bands because that’s what I had available at my house, but the catapults did come apart more easily with hair bands. I imagine rubber band would work better to hold the catapults together.
Supplies
- Popsicle sticks (8)
- Plastic Spoon
- Rubber Bands (or Hair ties if you don’t have rubber bands)
- Bouncy Ball
Instructions
Step 1 – Stack 7 popsicle sticks and put rubber bands or hair ties around them
Choose 7 popsicle sticks and stack them on top of each other, all laying the same direction. Next, use either 2 rubber bands or 2 hair ties to wrap around each end of the stack of popsicle sticks. Wrap the bands until they are completely tight on each end of the popsicle sticks.
Step 2 – Put plastic spoon and popsicle stick together with rubber band or hair tie
Get another popsicle stick and a plastic spoon and put them together. The popsicle stick goes on the bottom of the popsicle stick. Put a rubber band around the bottom of the spoon and the popsicle stick to hold them together.
Step 3 – Connect popsicle stick and spoon with the other stack of popsicle sticks
The popsicle stick and plastic spoon are now banded together with a rubber band. The popsicle stick (attached to the plastic spoon) needs to be pushed through the bottom two popsicle sticks in the stack of 7 that are already rubber banded together.
This may take a bit of work to get the popsicle stick through the stack of 7 popsicle sticks to the other side. The plastic spoon will rest on top of the stack of 7 popsicle stacks forming a catapult. Once the popsicle stick/plastic spoon combination is attached to the 7 popsicle stick stack, the catapulting can begin!
Step 4 – Do catapult competitions
Let the catapult competitions begin! Get every child a bouncy ball to put on their catapult, so they can compete in the competitions. Line all the kids up with their catapult and bouncy ball, count to 3 and then all the kids let their catapult go at the same time. See which ball goes the farthest.
Another game you can play is build a tower with some blocks and see if the catapults can knock down the block tower. Kids also love using the catapult to launch marshmallows (you might need some extras because they are sure to eat some!).
2. Popsicle Stick Snake
This ice cream stick craft snake is a simple, fun craft for kids to use their imagination. With the snake craft, kids get to color, use glue, and pretend to slither their snake around once the creation is complete.
Supplies
- Popsicle sticks
- Glue
- Googly eyes
- Markers
- Sharpie
Instructions
Step 1 – Choose amount of popsicle sticks that you want
We used 6 popsicle sticks to make our snake, but you can use more or less popsicle sticks depending on how long you want the snake to be.
Step 2 – Color the popsicle sticks
Use markers and sharpies to color the popsicle sticks with different designs such as stripes, polka dots, triangles, squares, diamonds, whatever design you want. We used colorful popsicle sticks, so we chose different colors for each popsicle stick and then used a sharpie to decorate the different colored popsicle sticks. My toddler had a lot of fun doing different designs on each popsicle stick.
Step 3 – Glue the popsicle sticks together
Choose the order you want the popsicle sticks to go in. Line them up and then glue two ends of the popsicle sticks together, with a ¼ inch of the popsicle sticks overlapping. Set the popsicle sticks to make a V shape when they are glued together. The popsicle sticks should alternate which direction they go once glued together. The shape of the snake should look like this – VVVVV. Let the popsicle sticks dry for about 30 minutes.
Step 4 – Glue googly eyes on the head of the snake
Decide which popsicle stick is the head and add googly eyes to the tip of the head. The googly eyes should be placed next to each other and they will both protrude slightly out of the head. Let the googly eyes dry for 10-15 minutes.
Use your snakes to slither around on the ground. Play pretend with the snakes and have lots of fun doing imaginative play. You can also leave the popsicle stick snakes in random places as joke to pay on someone when the unsuspectingly walk by the snake!
3. Popsicle Stick Dragonflies
This cute art project is easy and kids love it!
Supplies
- Popsicle Sticks
- Glue
- Googly eyes
- Construction Paper
- Crayons, Markers, Colored pencils
- Scissors
- Pencil
- Sharpie
Instructions
Step 1 – Trace the wings of the different dragonflies on construction paper
Choose 3 different colors of construction paper. Fold the construction paper in half. Trace half of the wing design on the folded piece of construction paper. Make sure you draw the wing design where the fold of the construction paper is. Use a pencil to trace the wings first and then trace over it again with a sharpie. Repeat with the other 2 pieces of construction paper and the other win designs.
Step 2 – Cut out the different wing designs
Keep the construction paper folded when you cut out the wing designs. Keeping the construction paper folded cuts down the amount of time you spend cutting out the designs.
Step 3 – Color the wings and popsicle sticks
Color the different wings with markers, crayons, or colored pencils. You can draw different patterns on the rocks such as polka dots, stripes, and other shapes. You can color the popsicle sticks as well with stripes or polka dots. We used colorful polka dots, so we didn’t color the popsicle sticks. You can though if you want!
Step 4 – Glue the wings and googly eyes onto the popsicle stick
Glue the wings onto the popsicle stick and let it dry for 15-20 minutes. Also, glue the googly eyes onto the top of the popsicle stick, let dry for 10-15 minutes.
You can now use the dragonflies to fly around, as puppets for shows, to add to any imaginary play. My toddler loved flying the dragonflies around and pretending they were real. Remind your toddler or child to not throw the dragonflies because they can’t actually fly! This icecream stick craft is one your child is sure to love!
4. Popsicle Stick Snowflakes
This is a fun alternative to paper snowflakes. They are fun to tape to a window or hang in a window or on a Christmas tree!
Supplies
- Popsicle sticks (4)
- Glue
- Markers, crayons, or colored pencils
- Glitter, sequins, or beads
- Tape
The popsicle stick snowflakes is a great craft to embrace winter still being here. Our backyard has so much snow, so I am trying to continue enjoying winter even though I really want summer to show up! The popsicle stick snowflakes are really run for kids to decorate; they can choose any colors and combinations of glitter, sequins, and beads to put on their popsicle sticks. After the snowflakes have dried, you can hang them in the window where they catch the light and look very wintry.
Instructions
Step 1 – Color the 4 popsicle sticks
If you didn’t buy pre-colored popsicle sticks, then color the popsicle sticks with markers, crayons, or colored pencils. Your child can choose any colors and designs to put on the popsicle sticks. This is where your child’s creativity can really shine.
Step 2 – Glue the popsicle sticks together
Now, you need to position the popsicle sticks correctly, so they look like a snowflake. The picture below will demonstrate how they should look, but there will be 6 points of the snowflake. The middle of the popsicle sticks will be glued together, but the direction of the popsicle stick will move to create the points of the snowflake. Leave the popsicle sticks to dry for 30 minutes.
Step 3 – Put glue on the popsicle sticks and add sequins, beads, or glitter
Put glue on the tops of the popsicle sticks, then add sequins, beads, or glitter to where the glue is. You can make lots of fun designs and patterns with the sequins, beads, and glitter. With these added decorations your snowflakes will catch the light when they hang in the window. Let the popsicle stick snowflake dry for at least 30 minutes. It may take longer depending on how much glue you added to the popsicle sticks.
Step 4 – Add tape to the back of the snowflake
Fold a piece of tape in half and put it on the back of the snowflake. Then tape the snowflake to the window.
5. Popsicle Stick Bird Feeder
Kids enjoy making this bird feeder. And then they love watching birds come eat from the bird feeder they created!
Supplies
- Popsicle sticks
- Glue
- String
- Birdseed
This popsicle stick craft is so easy to make and so satisfying when birds come and eat the food you put out for them. Your toddler will love watching the birds come and eat food out of the container they built themselves out of popsicle sticks. You can use elmer’s glue, wood glue, or a hot glue gun to build the bird feeder – wood glue does take the longest to dry and elmer’s glue is not as strong as the other glues.
Instructions
Step 1 – Form the base
Select 6 large popsicle sticks and line them up next to each other. Put glue between each popsicle stick and stick them together. Next, glue two sticks across the six base sticks towards the ends of each side of the sticks. Glue 2 more sticks on in the opposite direction. This will hold your base together.
Step 2 – Add the perch
Add glue to the middle of the popsicle stick. Then glue it in the opposite direction of the last sticks you glued.
Step 3 – Finish building the walls of the bird feeder
Continue gluing 2 sticks at a time parallel to each other to build up the walls. You need to add 20 popsicle sticks altogether to build up the walls, 2 at a time. Once you have added all of the popsicle sticks, let it dry.
Step 4 – Add string to the bird feeder
Get string or twine and cut four pieces, each of them should be 2 feet long. Tie each string to a corner of the popsicle stick. Tie two strings together at the top and then tie two more string together. The loops will help the bird feeder hang in a tree.
Step 5 – Add birdseed and put in tree
Add birdseed to the bird feeder, but only about 1/2 or 2/3 full to make sure your bird feeder can hold the birdseed. Then hang it in a tree. Now watch the birds come and eat from your beautiful bird feeder!
Hope you enjoy all of these fun popsicle stick crafts with your toddler!
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