How to Make a Paper Plate Rose

We’re planning a Wiggles theme for Bee’s second birthday in a few weeks time, so I’m crash testing some easy Wiggles inspired craft ideas that would be suitable for either toddlers or preschoolers. The first ones we tried were these Dorothy the Dinosaur paper plate roses….

You need:

• paper plates
• paint & paint brush (optional)
• paper edger scissors (or normal scissors)
• green pipe cleaner
• stapler

Dorothy likes everything to be rosy pink, so we started off by painting our paper plates pink. (Actually I used Micador Rockin’ Red {not sponsored}, which paints on red, but faded to pink when dried.)

Since you need to paint the front and back of each plate, we painted a bunch over two sessions. You could skip this step if you buy pre-coloured plates, but that would mean missing out on painting fun! Plus I think the streaks and white patches from dodgy toddler paint jobs add a lot of character to the roses.

Once the plates are dry, use fancy paper edger scissors to cut off the corrugated edge of the plate, and then cut a spiral to the centre. I have a set of six Friskars paper edgers {not sponsored} that I bought a few years ago and use all the time. If you don’t have paper edgers, than normal scissors would work too.

Grab the middle piece, and then wrap the rest of the spiral around until the end meets the beginning again.

Staple the pipe cleaner to the two ends. You might want to cut the pipe cleaner in halves to make a small straight stem, or leave it whole and twist sections to make two green leaves – it’s up to you!

I made the one above, and JJ helped to make the rest, including this one below.

Cutting off (or trimming down at least) the corrugated edge was something JJ could do on her own. She needed help to cut spirals, but with assistance she was able to achieve a rough spiral shape. I tended to take over for the stapling bit. Working together, we were able to make a few respectable flowers, to create quite a lovely bouquet.

And so if we go back to the original question – is this a good craft for a Wiggles party?

My almost two year old toddler Bee had loads of fun painting the paper plates, but the rest of the craft was a bit beyond her. She did love playing with the finished roses though!

My four year old preschooler JJ had lots of fun making these roses, and was able to do most steps with assistance. There will be a few 4 and 5 year olds coming to the party with their parents, so this might be a cute activity that they could do together. I’ll probably provide the plates pre-painted however, because chances are there won’t be enough drying time to paint and create a rose flower in the one afternoon.

I have a few other Wiggles craft ideas that I’m hoping to road test in the next fortnight, so stay tuned….

xxx Danya

PS: Just for fun, here are few outtakes. 🙂

xx Danya