DLTK's Crafts for Kids
Paper Birthday Hat - Ladybug Theme

From my experience, the kids don't wear their birthday hats for very long, but it can be a nice warm up for party guests as they arrive to color in and decorate their hats.  An adult or older sibling can then make the hats into cones and hand them back as the kids sit down to eat cake.

Materials:

• a printer,
• a piece of paper,
• something to color with,
• scissors,
• glue or tape.
• Optional:  stickers to decorate the blank areas of the hat
• Optional:  wide ribbon for tying the hat
• Optional:  cardstock or thin cardboard for making a sturdier hat

Instructions:

• Print out the template of choice.
• Optional:  Glue the template to a piece of thin cardboard or card stock and let dry before the party (I actually find just the plain paper hats work fine but if you want really sturdy ones you can use this option).
• Color (as required).  I like to let everyone color their own hats.
• Cut out the template pieces.  It's a simple template and easy to cut out, but scissors can be stressful for mom and potentially dangerous for the kids during a birthday party.  If you would like, you can cut out the templates before the party so the guests won't need to use them.
• Apply glue (regular school glue is fine) along the edge of the hat and roll it into a cone.  Hold it for half a minute or so for the glue to catch.  Optionally, you can use a bit of scotch tape or a few staples.
• Optional:  Punch holes in either side of the hat and tie a ribbon so the hat stays on the head (this works better with hats made with cardstock or thin cardboard...  The plain paper rips too easily).   I personally don't use this ribbon.  I just let the kids balance the hats on their heads.  I even play a game with them during the party where they have to run a birthday relay race (run to the wall and back):
  • round 1:  carry a stack of gifts (I wrap empty boxes);
  • round 2:  balance the hats on their heads;
  • round 3:  carry an egg on a spoon (birthday cake making supplies)
  • I try to make teams that make the 3 rounds make sense (3 kids or 6 kids per team)

Templates:

• Close the template window after printing to return to this screen.
• Set page margins to zero if you have trouble fitting the template on one page (FILE, PAGE SETUP or FILE, PRINTER SETUP in most browsers).

Template:   color  or   B&W