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The Craft Train

Crafty ideas for kids and parents

You are here: Home / Printables / Sparkly Paper Plate Dinosaurs

Sparkly Paper Plate Dinosaurs

June 2, 2014 By Kate 34 Comments

This post may contain affiliate links. I may receive commissions for purchases made through links in this post at no cost to you.

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Make some sparkly paper plate dinosaurs with our set of printable templates! 

This craft has been updated and extended into an ebook of 12 fun dinosaur templates complete with facts about each animal and a page of environmentally-friendly paper googly eyes.

paper plate dinosaurs with printable template

Who doesn’t love a good dinosaur craft?

We’ve named these glittery paper plate dinosaurs “the sparkle-a-sauruses”, and they are now hanging on the girls’ bedroom cupboard magically guarding against any ghosts or monsters who might dare to sneak into their bedroom at night. You can make some too using paper plates, our templates and a few basic craft supplies!

Although we’ve decorated this set with glitter, they don’t need to be. You could decorate them any way you like, for example: using ordinary paint, tissue paper squares, sponge stamps, spot stickers etc. Use your imagination and go wild!

You can get the Diplodocus template delivered to your inbox for free by entering your email into the box provided. The rest of the templates (plus more) can be found in our Paper Plate Dinosaur Ebook.

You will need:

  • The printable templates found in our dinosaur ebook, or use the free diplodocus template you can get delivered to your inbox by entering your email address into the box provided
  • Paper plates cut in half (standard size is best but I used the smaller size and had to trim two spikes from the Stegosaurus’s spine to be able to make it fit, but for the rest of the templates it makes no difference)
  • PVA (school) glue
  • Loose glitter
  • Googly eyes, or use the printable paper googly eyes provided in the ebook
  • Paintbrush and stapler
  • Coloured construction paper

How to:

paper-plate-dinosaurs

paper-plate-dinosaurs2

Use a paintbrush to cover the back of your paper plates with glue, sprinkle liberally with plenty of  glitter and then hold up and shake the excess off.

Glitter is very messy to work with, especially when kids are getting involved, so this is best done outside over a large sheet of paper to catch the spilled glitter. You can attempt to put any excess glitter back in the container by folding a crease in the paper once you’re done and pouring it back in.

If the idea of working with messy glitter makes you cringe it might not be worth the stress (because remember craft is supposed to be fun not stressful). You are probably better off just painting the plates like we did in the original version here, or let the kids dream up their own way of decorating them (I’m sure they’ll come up with something).

paper-plate-dinosaurs11

While the glitter is drying print out the dinosaur templates. Coloured heavy paper stock is best for this part.

Cut out the legs, heads and tails and when the paper plate has dried staple the pieces on to create your dinosaurs. Stick on one googly eye each and you’re done.

paper-plate-dinosaurs4

Raaah, don’t you love our Sparkle-a-saurus-Rex?

paper-plate-dinosaurs5

 

 

 

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Comments

  1. 1

    Michelle says

    June 3, 2014 at 2:30 am

    This a great idea! Thank you so much for sharing it, it will be todays activity for my little boys, though I hope I have paper plates!!

    Reply
  2. 2

    Amber says

    June 3, 2014 at 7:44 pm

    Love these thank you!

    Reply
  3. 3

    Jeanine says

    June 29, 2014 at 7:56 pm

    This would be perfect for my girls who love dinosaurs but find all their crafts too boyish! LOL Thank you for the inspiration and solution! :and

    Reply
  4. 4

    Betsy says

    August 11, 2014 at 3:06 am

    Thank you for sharing these templates! My class made some recently and I love how they turned out!

    Reply
    • 5

      Kate says

      August 12, 2014 at 3:16 am

      That’s awesome, glad you liked them

      Reply
  5. 6

    JC says

    November 16, 2014 at 5:27 am

    Fantastic! Such a great asset to any dinosaur unit! Thank you very much!

    Reply
  6. 7

    Deborah Jones says

    November 27, 2014 at 5:32 pm

    Love, love, love these. Thank you xxx

    Reply
  7. 8

    Myrna Feliciano says

    January 15, 2015 at 6:52 pm

    Love this activity. My kids have fun with it. The only I changed was that I make it like wall plates, so they can hanged in their rooms.

    Reply
    • 9

      Kate says

      January 15, 2015 at 9:38 pm

      What a fab idea!

      Reply
  8. 10

    Hilary says

    February 19, 2015 at 3:05 am

    Thank you so much for sharing these!! My kindergarten friends will absolutely LOVE them 🙂

    Reply
    • 11

      Kate says

      February 20, 2015 at 2:58 am

      Thanks!

      Reply
  9. 12

    Yvonne Bruce says

    April 24, 2015 at 9:27 pm

    Did this today with a group of children and they all loved it! Fantastic idea with amazing results. Thank you so much!

    Reply
    • 13

      Kate says

      May 10, 2015 at 4:43 am

      Fabulous! So glad you all liked it 🙂

      Reply
  10. 14

    Maura George says

    June 7, 2015 at 2:33 pm

    Thank you for the printable dinosaur parts and the brilliant Dino paper plate craft! The kids are sure to love this one.

    Reply
    • 15

      Kate says

      June 9, 2015 at 2:25 am

      Thanks Maura! You are most welcome and I’m glad the kids loved them.

      Reply
  11. 16

    Chequita says

    June 19, 2015 at 4:44 am

    Thank you so much
    I have a class of 12 boys and 1 girl. This activity will bring back sparkle in the class 😉

    Reply
  12. 17

    toni says

    July 16, 2015 at 5:03 pm

    These are delightful. Thank you so much – I can’t wait to make them with my group.

    Reply
  13. 18

    PATRICIA GUERRERO says

    August 19, 2015 at 12:20 pm

    Genial!!! Gracias….

    Reply
  14. 19

    April says

    September 2, 2015 at 3:16 am

    Thank you so much for sharing these. We are going to make them as part of our son’s birthday festivities. He is really excited.

    Reply
    • 20

      Kate says

      September 2, 2015 at 3:26 am

      You’re welcome! Thank you for stopping by to comment and I hope he has a wonderful day! 🙂

      Reply
  15. 21

    Nina Lewis says

    October 1, 2015 at 1:04 pm

    I just saw this on pinterest. What a great idea — and you’re so sweet to have a free printable too. I’m going to do this with my grandkids this weekend.

    I have a link party that I’m trying to grow. It is Grandma Ideas Sharing Time at http://grandmaideas.com. I invite you to share this idea (and a couple of others) because I know that my readers will enjoy this idea as much as I do!

    My link party runs from Wednesday at 1:00 am through Friday night at midnight Mountain Daylight time in the U.S. I do hope you can make it!

    All the best,
    Nina

    Reply
  16. 22

    Abraham says

    January 4, 2016 at 6:13 pm

    woooooooooooooooooooooooooooowww this was a great idea for the children. Keep up the good work.

    Reply
  17. 23

    MumuK says

    February 18, 2016 at 9:23 pm

    These dinos are really greaaat!!
    Thanks from FRance!!

    Reply
    • 24

      Kate says

      February 21, 2016 at 9:51 am

      You’re most welcome!

      Reply
  18. 25

    Katia Aline says

    February 28, 2016 at 12:45 pm

    Adorei a idéia de usar os pratos para fazer os dinossauros.

    Reply
  19. 26

    Jodie says

    May 22, 2016 at 1:53 am

    Hi Kate – loved these dinosaurs, I actually bought sparkly cardboard to use instead so I didn’t have glitter going everywhere in my classroom (yes, I’m boring I know, but glitter follows me for months if I use it LOL!). I noticed though when I was putting mine together, they were in reverse compared to your photo, I had to re-do the stegosaurus, so wondering if you photo was reversed or was the printout reversed? I was going to show my students your website, but didn’t want to confuse them after they’ve coloured in the printout. Thanks again though, we are going to see a dinosaur exhibition at the Melbourne Museum (we live in Australia) so I know my students will love to make these!!

    Reply
    • 27

      Kate says

      May 22, 2016 at 10:19 am

      Hi Jodie, I’m glad you like the dinosaurs. I think I would have cut the shapes out, then turned them over once cut out and stuck them on with the black lines facing the back (which would still have been a bit visible) to make them look a bit cleaner for my photographs. If you have coloured in one side of the print out could you just stick the head on the other side of the semi circle, so that they are facing the other direction?

      Reply
  20. 28

    Lisa // Cucicucicoo: Eco Sewing & Crafting says

    July 24, 2018 at 9:31 am

    Super cute!

    Reply
  21. 29

    Michelle says

    September 13, 2018 at 2:19 pm

    These are so much fun to make with my granddaughter and she plays with them for hours!

    Reply
    • 30

      Kate says

      September 15, 2018 at 7:45 pm

      That’s fantastic, so glad you had fun with them 🙂

      Reply
  22. 31

    Laura says

    March 21, 2019 at 1:48 am

    Love it! Wondering if you could use a brass brad to connect the head, legs, etc. so that the body parts can move? Maybe use a single-hole punch and attach the brad so that the prongs are on the back (unseen from the front)? I’m gonna try it!

    Reply
    • 32

      Kate says

      March 23, 2019 at 7:55 am

      Sounds like an awesome idea!

      Reply
  23. 33

    Kirsti says

    May 10, 2019 at 1:38 am

    This morning I printed out 5 of each dinosaur template on different coloured paper and laid them out on a long table. I put scissors on the table. As the kids came in, I showed them the picture of your dinosaurs and asked them to pick a template. I picked the stegosaurus and found it challenging, so I wondered how the 5-6-years-olds would do.

    They loved it. We had a room full of children cutting, coloring and stapling. We colored the plates with felt tip pens. And I put a lot of glitter in the glue, and the kids painted their dinos with glitter-glue.

    We turned all the body parts so that the printed lines were on the backside of the finished dinos. This way no one notices whether the lines were followed exactly or not.

    Thank you for a great activity!

    Reply
    • 34

      Kate says

      May 10, 2019 at 5:48 am

      Sounds like you had a fun morning! I’m glad the kids managed the tricky cutting out 🙂 Thank you for your feedback.

      Reply

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    I’m basically a big kid who never grew up and still loves to muck around with paint, glitter, glue and toilet rolls. With the crafts shared here on this website I’m hoping to give other parents and carers inspiration to get crafty with their kids at home – make our projects, or use them as a source of inspiration to spark ideas of your own. When it comes to crafting no rules apply!

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