Paper Bag Cactus Craft
This fun and easy craft involves making cute cacti out of paper bags, perfect for kids of all ages. Follow our step-by-step instructions and create your own paper bag cactus craft. An easy and fun craft idea for kids!
Whether you’re looking for a unique Valentine’s Day craft, or you just want to make a cute little paper bag craft, you’ll love this paper bag cactus! All you have to do is download the free cactus template, paint a paper bag green, and then glue all of your decorations on to decorate it. It’s an adorable craft for anytime of the year! You could even make it when you’re teaching a lesson about the desert!
We love to make crafts that mimic things in nature. This adorable cactus craft, tissue paper flowers, and a heart flower bouquet are just a few of our favorites. They’re always so much fun and turn out just adorable! Not only is this craft perfect for a nod to nature, but the little hearts make it great for Valentine’s Day. Oh, and cacti are great for Cinco de Mayo celebrations too! Make this fun little spikey friend whenever you want.
Why You’ll Love this Paper Bag Cactus Craft
- This craft is very affordable! You may already have many of the materials needed, and whatever you purchase will likely have leftovers that you can use in dozens of other super fun crafts.
- Make you easy cactus paper craft in just about a half hour. A wonderful quick activity if you have a short craft time or are working with kiddos whose attention span won’t stick around for a longer craft.
- Painting, cutting and pasting are all great for refining fine motor skills. Work on those essential skills and develop little muscles with an adorable paper bag cactus.
Supplies Needed
- Paper bags – You can find brown paper bags on the same aisle as plastic zip top bags. Just grab a pack and hang onto the leftovers because I have tons of super fun crafts that use brown paper bags!
- Green paint – Grab a nice shade of green acrylic paint to coat the bag and make it the base of your paper cactus craft.
- Markers – You’ll need both green and black markers to make the spikeys and smiley face onto the cactus puppet craft.
- Cardstock – Make sure that you have green, pink, and red cardstock so that you can make all of the pieces and decorations for the paper cacti.
- 1” heart paper punch – If you can’t find a heart paper punch, you can draw one freehanded and then cut it out!
- Googly eyes – Use the medium size ones so that they are the correct size ratio to the paper bag and decorations.
- Scissors – If you are making this with young children, I recommend using safety scissors. Little hands are much safer when you use safety scissors!
- Glue stick – A simple school glue stick will do the trick to attaching all of the little decorations to your fun cactus!
- Cactus Arm Template – Print out this free template to easily make the arms of the cactus.
How to Make this Paper Bag Cactus Craft
Start by using the green paint and a paint brush to paint the brown bag. Allow the paint to dry completely while you prep the other decorations for the cactus.
Print the template and then cut of the arms for the cactus. Trace each one onto green cardstock and then carefully cut them out.
Once the paper bag is fully dry, glue the arms onto each side, at different heights, so that they look like the arms of a cactus!
Grab your green marker and add random lines and dashes onto the green painted bag to make thorns for your cactus. Then glue the googly eyes to the top of the bag and use your black marker to draw a smile.
Punch out a bunch of hearts from pink or red cardstock and then glue them around the cactus.
Allow the glue to dry and then you’re good to go!
How can I customize my paper bag cactus?
There are tons of different ways to make this cactus extra unique and cute! Cut out a bow or a sombrero to glue to the top. You can also give your cactus cute little eyelashes or even a fun mustache. Feel free to decorate with things like pom poms, rhinestones, stickers, tissue paper flowers and so much more. Any fun ideas you have can turn your cactus craft into an extra unique creation!
Pro Tips for the Most Fun!
- To speed things up a bit, you can use paper bags that are already green. Then you won’t have to paint any bags or wait for them to dry!
- If you are making this craft with really little kids, have pre-painted bags and cut out the arms and hearts for them. That way, all they’ll have to do is glue the decorations onto the bag and voila, their cactus is complete.
- Cover your workspace in paper or a plastic tablecloth so that you don’t have to clean up a big mess of paint or glue. It’ll make your clean-up process so much easier!
This cuties little craft is so much fun to make. You’re going to love it!
More Paper Bag Crafts You’ll Love!
- This Paper Bag Butterfly Craft is one of the cutest spring time crafts. Great for kids of all ages!
- Make a fun fall craft like this Paper Bag Scarecrow. A wonderful Thanksgiving craft to keep the kids entertained during fall break.
- Want some more spring time crafts? This Paper Bug Bunny is so much fun!
- A Paper Bag Handprint Bee is just the cutest thing ever.
Cactus Paper Bag Craft
Ingredients
Instructions
- Begin by painting a paper bag with green acrylic paint. Let the paint dry completely.
- While the paint is drying, print and cut out the template for the cactus arms. Trace and cut the arms out of green cardstock.
- Then, once the paint on the bag is completely dry, glue the arms coming out from the sides of the paper bag.
- Use a green marker to randomly add dashes around the cactus for the thorns.
- Glue googly eyes to the top of the bag. Also use a black marker to draw a simple mouth.
- Next, punch a bunch of hearts using a heart paper punch out of either red or pink cardstock.
- Glue the hearts around the cactus to complete this adorable Valentine’s Day love cactus craft. The perfect way to say I’m stuck on you to your favorite people!
