Paper Dream Catchers

Is there a person out there who doesn’t wish good dreams on their little ones? My youngest has the bad habit of getting up over and over after we put her to bed, and the further bad habit of crawling out of her own comfy bed and into mine in the middle of the night. Sometimes I carry her back & tuck her back in, but other times I am too zonked out and just make a bit of room. Needless to say, none of us are getting a good night’s sleep right now. It’s probably wishful thinking that paper decorations like these will help alleviate that problem, but at an age when she still believes in magic there’s a good chance it will help calm at least a little bit of her night fears. Monsters, the dark, spiders and shadows all play a part in her behaviour, and she also frequently gets up just to tell me she can’t sleep.

We made these colourful dream catchers to hang above the girls’ beds. Maybe if my daughter believes she will have a good nights sleep there is a better chance of that happening.

We did this craft over 2 days, because you need to paint the paper plates & then wait for them to dry. This is how we did it:

You will need

• Paper plates

• Paints and brushes

• Coloured craft paper – we used card stock but ordinary construction paper would also work

• Raffia or crepe paper

• Feathers (or for the spotted guinea fowl feathers in bright colours click here)

• plastic jewels to decorate

• Glue or double sided tape

How To:

First cut a hole in your paper plate, then paint it whatever colour you like. You could paint a second plate to stick over the top once the inside web is finished if desired, but I didn’t bother since ours are just being hung on the wall and you won’t see the back.

Allow to dry. I find that darker colours (like purple) need a second coat.

I used a craft knife and ruler to cut lots of strips from the coloured craft paper, mine are all exactly 5mm wide. Obviously if using a craft knife this is a grown up job but you can just as easily cut it up with scissors for a more kid-friendly version.

I put double sided tape all the way around on the underside and the girls took it from there sticking on the paper strips to make the web. You could use glue if you prefer.

Miss R’s handiwork

Cut 20-30cm lengths of the raffia or crepe paper (we used raffia) and stick them on the bottom edge with double sided tape (or glue)

Stick feathers on the ends of the raffia strips, then turn over and decorate the front with the

jewel stickers and extra feathers.

They looked pretty hanging outside in the tree but of course being paper we brought them back inside again and hung them in the house.

Miss R and Miss K now have their very own hand-made paper dream catchers to bring them all the good dreams floating around on the ether.

More decorative craft ideas for kids

– Make a lovely autumn leaf clay mobile
– These woven craft stick butterflies look bright and colourful
– My preschooler and I had a try at making classic clay coil pots, and they turned out well!
– Use a recycled plastic milk jug to make a sun catcher mobile
– Create some garden bugs using pebbles and nail polish
– These paper plate dinosaurs have long been one of our most popular posts (plus they sparkle!)

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