Paint Stick Ballerina Craft for Kids

Last updated on April 30, 2019

This adorable paint stick ballerina craft will be a hit with little dancers who love to make and create! It’s an easy group activity for a dance class or a dance party.

Recently, while we were crafting, a couple of the hooligans were discussing their year-end dance recitals, and it got me thinking that we should do a dance-themed craft.

We made these sweet ballerina ornaments for the Christmas tree a couple of years ago, but they were pretty tiny, so we’ve tweaked those ballerinas & made these paper plate ballerinas today. Hooray! Another one for the letter B in our Epic A-Z paper plate crafts collection!

Paint Stick Ballerina Craft - Happy Hooligans

The results are super-cute, and the girls had a lot of fun making them. Don’t you love the little ballet slippers?

Let me show you the easy step-by-step, and then your kids can get busy making some paint stick ballerinas of their own!

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To make our paint stick ballerina craft, you’ll need:

Wooden paint sticks (ask for a handful at your local hardware store or paint store)
Acrylic craft paint
paint brushes
Paper plates
pink ribbon
yarn
glue
tape
satin ribbon
sequins and craft jewels
markers

Making your ballerinas:

half paper plate painted pink

To start, we cut a paper plate in half, and painted it. Some hooligans chose traditional pink for their ballerinas, and some chose different colours. Your child can choose any colour at all.

painting a paint stir stick

Next, we painted the body portion of the paint stick, leaving an unpainted section at the top for the ballerina’s face and hair, and an unpainted portion at the bottom for her legs and slippers.

We then glued the tutu to the paint stick body, and added sequins to the tutu. The sequins aren’t necessary, of course, but we thought they added a nice touch.

paper plate ballet tutus

For the hair, we squeezed some glue onto the top inch or so of the craft stick, and we wound a length of yarn around it. Then we glued the loose end in place.

gluing yarn to paint stick

Next, we drew faces on our ballerinas.

You can use paint or Sharpies or washable markers like we did.

Just do a little test on the back to make sure the marker ink doesn’t bleed into the wood too much. If they do, you’ll want to paint your faces on.

paint stick ballet dancer

Now, you’re going to finish with your ballet slippers.

This was our favourite part of the project because it really made our dolls look like ballerinas.

ballet slippers on paint stick doll

With pink paint, paint “slippers” on the bottom inch or so of your paint stick. Next, add your satin ribbon. We tried gluing our ribbon on with school glue, but it wouldn’t hold, so we ended up taping it in place. A hot glue gun would definitely work.

paper plate ballerina craft