Diwali dyi rangoli

If you are looking for a super easy and fun arts and craft activity to do with the kids….look no further because this is Diwali dyi rangoli is it.  We are super excited this time of year.  Not only are there many American holidays that our families love to celebrate together, but it’s festival season in India too.  And next week in particular it’s Diwali – the festival of lights and the start of a new year.  Last year, we were approached by the ladies behind 3 Curious Monkeys to review their book just for Diwali – The Diwali Gift.  Check it out if you haven’t…it’s such a cute book for this particular holiday and explains Diwali’s meaning in just the right way for little ones.

This year, they have come up with several arts and crafts that you can do to celebrate Diwali even more.  This ‘recycled’ dyi rangoli especially peeked my interested since my older son is really into cutting with scissors and gluing things (awesome for building hand-eye coordination) plus we are reusing old cardboard (from all the online shopping we are all guilty of these days) at the same time.  Why not convert what you would dump into your recycle bin into a festive decorative piece that your little ones will enjoy making while learning valuable lessons of Reducing, Recycling and Reusing too.  Totally a ‘win win’ in my book. I can’t wait to do this with my boys this weekend!  Here’s how.

Materials:

• Old cardboard boxes cut into pieces
• Shiny craft or gift wrapping paper (great way to use up your old pieces!)
• Self adhesive/stick on jewels (can get these at any craft store)
• Kids Glue
• Kid safe scissors
• Marker

Steps:

1. Choose rangoli shapes and draw them onto old cardboard pieces. Here we have chosen a star and six flower petal shapes.

draw rangolis onto cardboard

2. Cut them carefully – kids should also cut with adult supervision and with kid safety scissors.

cut rangoli shapes

3. Now the fun part – decorate and make it festive. Trace the cardboard onto the craft/wrapping paper and cut to match your rangoli pieces.

trace and cut decorative paper in shape of rangolis

4. Glue the cut out pieces onto the cardboard cutouts. Do this for all your rangoli pieces.

glue decorative paper onto rangoli cardboard pieces

5. To make it really festive, let the kids pick and stick the self adhesive jewel stickers onto the rangolis

add sticker jewels

Drumroll please….your final rangoli masterpiece.  Turns pretty awesome if you ask us. Thanks again 3 Curious Monkeys and Happy Diwali to everyone!

final rangoli masterpiece