Paper Plate Santa Craft

This Paper Plate Santa Craft is a great Christmas activity for preschoolers to do at home or at school. And, they make the perfect DIY Christmas decoration!

It’s the most wonderful time of the year, which means Santa crafts galore! Not only are paper plate crafts are so much fun for younger kids, they are incredibly simple and affordable. Chances are you already have a stack of plates in your pantry. Just pull a few out for some holiday season fun!

You can have a lot of fun doing this simple Christmas craft with your kids, especially pasting on the cotton balls! My daughter loved racing to put on the cotton balls before the glue dried. If your toddler or preschool is still learning the concept, put on a little glue at a time, fill it in with the cotton balls, and then continue on.

This is a great craft because you can make it as inclusive as you want to make it. Feel free to play around with skin tones – young children love it when their crafts are relatable, especially as they are learning about the importance of diversity and acceptance.

I would recommend that your children do this craft with adult supervision for the shape cutting and the glue. I personally used two types of glue for this craft. I prefer glue sticks when working with craft paper because you have less risk of that “wet” and slightly wrinkled look that comes with using liquid glue. You can use either a hot glue gun or Elmer’s glue for attaching the cotton balls, pom poms, and eyes.

What you’ll need:

paper plate
craft paper (cream/off-white and/or brown, pink, red, and green)
cotton balls, lightly pulled apart and fluffed
googly eyes
one medium red pom pom
three mini red pom poms
hot glue gun or Elmer’s white glue (for pom poms and cotton balls)
glue stick (for paper)
craft scissors

Now, throw on some Christmas music, get in the holiday spirit, and have lots of fun. When you’re done, you can hang your fun paper plate Santa craft on your door or place it on your mantel in your living room!

If you’re looking for another easy Christmas craft, try this Toilet Paper Roll Christmas Tree or these DIY Candy Cane Christmas Ornaments.

Paper Plate Santa Craft

This cute Santa is going to be a hit at your house! Just follow the step-by-step photos for a quick and easy Christmas time activity.

Step 1: Assess your supplies.

Step 2: Cut your craft paper.

To start Santa’s face, take your cream or brown construction paper and use the back of the paper plate to trace a circle. Use your craft scissors to cut it out.

Next, cut two ovals out of the pink craft paper to make the rosy cheeks.

Finally, cut either a triangle, or a half circle with a tail on the side for the red portion of the hat. Youngsters may want to stick to the triangle while older kids may want to create a more unique hat shape (pictured below)

Step 3: Next, create your holly using the green craft paper. First, take a small square and fold it in half. Then use a pencil to draw your holly leaf outline as pictured below. Finally, cut along your lines and unfold!

I like to keep the holly slightly bent for more dimension and to make it look more realistic.

Step 4: Turn the plate face side down and use your glue stick to paste on the circle for the face. We won’t be using the top of the paper plate.

Step 5: Glue a cotton ball to the tip of the hat. Then, paste the hat to the top of the head.

Step 6: Lightly pull apart and fluff your cotton balls. Then, using a hot glue gun or white craft glue, create a line of cotton balls along the bottom edge of Santa’s hat.

Step 7: Paste on your googly eyes, red nose, and two rosy cheeks on the top half of the face, leaving the bottom half free for the beard. I used a glue stick for the craft paper and my hot glue gun for the nose and eyes. If you don’t have googly eyes, you can draw them on with a black marker.

Step 9: Paste the green holly leaf within the cotton ball liner of the hat. Then, add in the three mini red pom poms as the berries.

Finally, create the beard by gluing on several cotton balls beneath the nose and around the sides of the face. Be sure to fill in the inner lip of the back of the plate to give the beard a fuller feel!