Crafts

There are few things more thrilling on a windy day than flying a nice kite that you built yourself. But, I’m not talking about ready to go kits that you snap together in 10 minutes. I’m referring to designing and building it yourself from scratch.

There’s so much satisfaction from watching your homemade handiwork take flight in the skies. I remember growing up making kites from just fishing line, sticks on the ground and plastic bags.

I wanted to relive those days, and build a kite for my son – so that’s exactly what I did 🙂 Here’s how to make a box kite from scratch.

Planning the Kite Design

This time around, I wanted to go beyond the standard diamond shaped kites that I used to make as a kid. My craftsmanship has significantly improved since I was 10 years old, and I wanted to construct something that was up to my present standards.

After some kite design research, I settled upon the box kite. If you are wondering how to make a box kite, it’s an easy project to work on.

It’s an elongated box frame with fabric wrapped on two ends, leaving the middle exposed. It also has two attached strings (with specific offsets to give the kite a better aerodynamic tilt during flight) which converge to a single string to control.

How to Make a Box Kite

Here is a TinkerCad sketch I made of my proposed design of how to make a box kite. I love using TinkerCad because it gives great 3D visuals of my DIY projects.

It just so happens that a few days before my birthday, Eileen was on the phone with one of her sisters and mentioned that we were planning to make a kite.

Her sister stealthily went on Amazon and ordered a few kite-making materials as a birthday present for me. So we lucked out with some nice wooden dowels, table cloths, and an awesome spool of string for the box kite. 🙂

Materials for the Box Kite

Here’s the list of materials we used. A few were sent via Amazon but most are easily found around the house.

• ⅜” 4 ft wooden dowels (5 of them)
• Brightly colored lightweight plastic table covers
• Fishing line
• Stiff thin wires
• Electrical tape
• Shipping tape
• Spool of string

Step 1 – Preparing the Wooden Dowels

Here’s a picture of the wooden dowels. Little do they know about their high flying adventures to come 😉

I only used four of the dowels. The extra one you can use to keep pets away from chewing your sticks while working on your kite 🙂

My kite is made of 4 long 36” dowels, and 4 short 12” dowels. That means I can just take my 48” dowels and cut them at the 12” mark, and I’m set.

Here is one of the dowels marked at 12” and clamped into my handy workbench vice, ready to be cut with the hacksaw:

Several cuts later, here is the end result:

Add some string to that and I could sell it as a kit online!

Step 2 – Constructing the Crosses

To make the crosses, I first marked the center points of each 12” dowel. Then I notched out partial holes using my Dremel. If you don’t have a Dremel, you can use a hack saw.

The notches allowed two intersecting dowels to form a lap joint for a rigid connection.

Here’s a picture showing the notches I made with the Dremel (and a high-speed cutting bit):

Here are the dowels intersecting via the notches:

The ends of these crosses were going to be in contact with the long 36” dowels. To make for a better fit, I opted to carve the ends of the crosses slightly with a concave cut. This would allow the crosses to rest nicely against the long dowels.

Once again, I used the Dremel to make the cut below (boy was the Dremel helpful in this project):

To make a strong connection between the crosses and the long dowels, I used wire that I inserted into small holes drilled into the dowels.

The wire would be twist tied and strongly pull the dowels together. So holes were drilled into each 36” dowel (where the crosses were going to be in contact. Likewise, matching holes were drilled into the crosses (to line up with the holes on the long dowels)

Here’s a picture showing one of the holes I made in a cross:

Step 3 – My Strengthening Process

The lap joints I made for the crosses were just the beginning of the strengthening process I used for maximum durability.

First, I put a dab of construction adhesive in each joint. Wood glue was another option, but in my experience, wood glue tends to be a lot more runnier. Construction adhesive is thicker and starts to give some tackiness almost immediately.

Then, I assembled the crosses with the glue in place, and started reinforcing the intersection by repeatedly wrapping it with some fishing line:

Finally, I used strips of strong repair tape to repeatedly wrap the intersections:

Here is one of the finished structural crosses (it’s very sturdy at this point):

Step 4 – Assembling the Kite Frame

Now it was time to start connecting the crosses to the long wooden dowels using wire and the holes I drilled earlier.

Here’s a close-up showing how the connections were made:

The wire ran through a hole in the cross, and a hole in the 36” dowel. Then it was twist-tied.

Here is the kite structure nearly completed with the crosses attached via wire:

The wires made for a very strong connection between the dowels. However, the structure was still a little wobbly. To remedy that, I wrapped all the wire joints with electrical tape:

The kite structure was now complete and very rigid. It should have no problems standing up to strong wind forces (and inevitable crashes).

Step 5 – Wrapping the Fabric

Next up was wrapping the ends with fabric. You can be very liberal with what type of fabric you use. Some people use garbage bags. Others use construction paper. I used plastic tablecloths that my sister-in-law sent for our kite-making. You can pick these tablecloths up at the dollar store too.

Here’s a picture showing one side of the kite wrapped:

I also made sure the fabric was wrapped nice and tight around the structure. Then, I used a lot of shipping tape to help secure and reinforce the fabric.

I applied tape inside to help keep the fabric attached to the dowels. I also used tape where the fabric overlapped itself and on all the exposed edges of the fabric.

Here’s a close-up showing how the edges of the fabric were reinforced with tape:

This last step with taping the edges was especially important to prevent the fabric from ripping as wind gushed through the structure. It would also help during landings to prevent tearing.

Here is the kite with fabric applied to both sides:

Step 6 – Stringing the Kite

Now to make the string connections. String attaches to the top of the kite, and then again about ¾ down the kite. Then a final string connects to this one, and will be used to control the kite from the ground.

To attach string securely to the kite, I once again drilled some small holes and used more wire. The wires made a hook for the string to tie onto and not slide around.

Here’s a close-up of one of the wire hooks:

Here’s a picture showing how I attached the second string to the one above:

My Fancy Birthday Spool

That fancy metal clip connects to a string wrapped around a spool. The spool will be held by the kite flyer and reeled in and out as extra length is needed.

This nice kite flying spool came with a cool lightweight clip to quickly attach/detach to kites. If you aren’t so lucky, you can just wrap a long string around a stick and use that instead.

Here is the completed kite with spool of string:

Ready for Take-Off

The kite was now complete! We went to the park for a nice open area and really lucked out with a windy day!

Zeus had been wondering what we were working on and was overjoyed for his trip to the park. He got to run along with the box kite and enjoy a windy evening outside.

The homemade box kite was a really fun project to work on. It only took a few hours, and didn’t cost much to make. I can’t wait until my son’s old enough to create his own designs with me. His interest is already peaked – we are definitely a family of engineers.

Now when we have windy days this summer and fall, we have our hand-constructed box kite ready to go 🙂

If you have been wondering how to make a box kite, these six easy steps will have your kite ready in no time. All you’ll need then is a windy day.

It’s a great family project, kids activity, or couples activity – and who doesn’t love a great DIY project?!

Do you ever try to do a craft with your kids and it ends up a complete fail? Either it doesn’t turn out anything like you pictured, or it was too complicated for your kids, or it was more work than it was worth?

Boy, have I been there. Having been an inner city teacher and now a mom of an active toddler, I have quickly learned to keep activities simple.

Today I’m sharing how to make tissue paper suncatchers with your kids. It’s an easy craft that turns out really cute! And, you can use cookie cutters – another favorite among kids.

I love having my son make things for others. Even more, I love having him create something with a specific person in mind – say Nana – he’ll pick out all of the colors Nana likes, the stickers she likes, and create something special with her in mind. I think it teaches such an important lesson.

And the suncatcher activity was so great because he got to pick out a special shape for everyone – Nana got a cowgirl boot 🙂

As an added bonus, the tissue paper suncatchers are a cute little gift – not that I don’t love his usual scribbles on paper – I really, really do. I just don’t think others appreciate them like I do 😉

How to Make Tissue Paper Suncatchers

My quick cheat for this kids craft was using cookie cutters for the shapes. This saved a ton of time, which would have otherwise been spent drawing lopsided stars, and it added another element of fun to the project. It makes for an organized workspace.

Materials for Tissue Paper Suncatchers

• Tissue Paper – I went to Dollar Tree – one of my favorite stores for crafts, holidays, and other $1 treasures and stocked up on some cool tissue paper. I got some basic colors as well as a few patterns and speckled ones.
• Clear Contact Paper – You can probably get this a few dollars cheaper at the craft store with a coupon, but in a pinch, Amazon is amazing.
• Cookie Cutters – optional – but they certainly made the project simple. Plus, you can use them for lots of other crafty projects. I got these cookie cutters as a Christmas gift from Ash when we were first dating, and I use them ALL the time for my crafts. There are so many shapes and choices, including holiday and every day items.
• Scissors
• Pen

I usually keep a stack of small dollar store bins or buckets in my office/craft room. I use these to organize our kids crafts as they are happening. For example, I’ll have scissors/pens in one bin, tissue paper in another bin, etc.

Instructions for Tissue Paper Suncatchers

The tissue paper suncatcher kids craft was very simple. Depending upon the age of your kids, you may be more of less involved. A toddler would need an adult to be hands on, whereas a grade schooler could work mainly independently.

Preparation

First, I cut tissue paper into strips. You don’t have to cut too much. I did one or two strips of each color. To include my toddler, I gave him his scissors and some strips of tissue paper.

I love these scissors because they have a little lever, which makes it easier for him to open and close the scissors. I cut his tissue strips extra narrow, so he could practice cutting.

He loves to use scissors because he doesn’t get to use them all the time. So, cutting just a few pieces made him super excited. 🙂

Next, you will need two pieces of contact paper of roughly the same size for each suncatcher. You can prepare these ahead of time or cut as you go.

Making the Suncatchers

I peeled the back off of just one sheet of contact paper, and taped all four sides down to the table. The reason I did this was because my son is young, and I didn’t want the contact paper constantly sticking to him and moving. I try to keep our crafts fun and frustration-free, so it was easier to tape it down.

After, we picked our shape. Using cookie cutters made this step so simple and fun 🙂 My son loved picking a special shape for each suncatcher. In addition to the cowgirl for Nana, he picked a butterfly for his Aunty, a heart for Grandma, and a doggie for Zeus our pup.

Then, it was time to apply the tissue paper.

You can turn this into a fun sorting activity – and have your child sort the colors into piles.

For kids a little older, you can work on patterns, lining up a pattern, asking what comes next, and then sticking them on.

My son and I picked a few colors to use on each suncatcher. For the car, we used two shades of blue. For the heart, we picked three colors. And, for quite a few of the shapes, we used all of the colors.

Oddly enough, my son’s favorite colors are brown and black. Every time he goes to make a card for someone, he colors in brown or black marker. His Easter cards featured a cute pastel bunny with black and brown scribbles across it. 😉

Lucky for him, I had one sheet of black tissue paper. So we mixed white in and made a black and white star. Of course, it was his favorite.

After we covered enough of the surface of the contact paper with tissue, it was time to put the second sheet of contact paper down.

I recommend the grown-up doing this part. Contact paper can be tricky to work with and if it ends up all blotchy, it doesn’t look nice. I made a bubbly blotchy one myself, tried to fix it, and ended up ripping the tissue paper.

So rather than cause frustration for the kids, I would just do this myself. Lay one side down first and then keep pressing until you get to the other side. So I had my son watch me lay it down and then help me pat it.

After you’ve covered it with contact paper, take the intended cookie cutter and trace it onto the contact paper.

I used a regular pen and drew lightly, in case any lines were still there after I cut.

As an alternative to this, you can draw your shape or picture right onto the contact paper. I freehanded a train for his train-loving Pop.

And, it just happened to be Ash’s birthday – so I also freehanded  a hammer for him.

Once we were finished drawing the shape, I cut it out. While I cut, my son picked the next cookie cutter shape. Then, we taped each one to the window.

He had a great time taping them to the window, adding each one as we finished it, and then admiring our work. When we were all done, he loved going outside and seeing the suncatchers we had made.

Even though I did a bunch of the cutting and drawing, my son couldn’t be prouder of the tissue paper suncatchers. He had so much involvement in the project and loved all of his important jobs.

Depending upon how old your children are, they might be able to do most of this themselves, and you can just supervise. My son is still little, but I very much made him a part of every step.

You can also make these as a holiday activity, using Christmas or Halloween shapes. The tissue paper suncatchers can be Valentine gifts from kids or St. Patrick’s Day decorations.

They really do look pretty, and they make for a nice gift for kids to make and give.

We are giving them to family members to go with the thank you notes for my son’s Easter goodies; yet, the tissue paper suncatchers would also serve as a perfect mother’s day gift for mom or grandma or a father’s day gift, too.

If you are looking to keep a craft simple, follow these steps on how to make tissue paper suncatchers. Your kids will love making such an easy yet awesome creation, and you’ll be frustration-free 🙂