Paper plate angels

This idea comes from something I remember very fondly from my childhood. When I was little my mum got some printed cardboard angels that were quite tiny, probably only 2 inches tall at the most and the amazing thing to me was that they required no glue and were made from a single circle of card. Mum still has them I think, but they are probably quite battered after 20 odd years.

I thought it would be a cool idea to try and recreate their awesomeness using paper plates for the kids. We used full sized paper plates and ended up with quite large angels, but the same design works perfectly well with smaller plates for smaller angels and to be honest, you don't even really need a plate, just a circle of thin card. The paper plate just gives the wings realistic feather type texture and the bottom of the robes a pretty scallop. The dirt cheap thin paper plates work best.

I drew out and made the few cuts needed for each angel and then slotted the two half diameter slits into each other at the back and stuck a piece of sticky tape on to keep them secure while the kids coloured them and put stickers and glitter glue on. If you have older kids then it would be a better idea to get them to decorate the plates before you construct them, as it's easier to draw on them that way, but with my kids being so young I needed to construct them first for the kids to understand what was wing and what was robe.


NB if you colour them flat then remember that the side of the wings that you see when it's put together is actually the back of the plate.
They look very cute on top of Christmas trees or lined up on the mantle piece, and you can make them tall or short with long or short wings by adjusting how close together you make the two half diameter slits. Close together makes a tall angel with a skinny robe and long wings.

If you want to do non religious then a variation on the theme will give you a fairy, although the cutting is a little more involved.

At some point I'd like to draw out five or six different angels/fairies on a page of paper and scan them in, so you can print out a page, colour and make finger puppet sized ones. Maybe in the new year.