Lolly / Popsicle Stick Craft ideas

It doesn’t really matter if you call them a lolly or popsicle stick, those little wooden sticks are great for a while range of craft ideas. I recently bulk brought some normal sized and large lolly sticks and since then we’ve been coming up with more and more crafts to use them all up. All of these are really easy to do! Some are suitable for older kids, some are more suited to toddlers and under 5’s.

Colour sorting lolly stick craft

Lolly stick games | popsicle games for toddlers | Free Time with the Kids

This popsicle stick craft does require some prep, but it uses recycles materials and is otherwise easy to make. Just paint three coloured sections onto an old shoe or pizza box and allow to dry. Paint seven lolly sticks in each of the three colours and allow to dry. Carefully pierce seven holes in each section using scissors. Don’t make the holes too big otherwise the stick just wiggle around. When it’s all dry they just match the right colour stick to the painted section.

For a simpler version of this craft you can paint the popsicle sticks in various colours and get them to put together the sticks of the same colour.


Alphabet lolly stick game

For older children you can upgrade the colour game to make it into a letter recognition game. Write each letter of the alphabet on a lolly stick. Cut 26 small slits in a box and write each letter next to one of the slits. Get them to match the correct lolly stick to the correct slit.


Make a nature frame

Lolly stick crafts | popsicle crafts | Free Time with the Kids

I know that you can make nature frames / suncatchers with sticky back plastic, but that doesn’t seem to sit well with me regarding the eco theme. Instead we decided to use tissue paper to keep flowers in place. Click here for the full instructions on how to make your frame.


Monsters puppets

Lolly stick crafts | popsicle crafts | Free Time with the Kids

These little lolly stick monsters are a really quick and cheap craft for kids of all ages. All you need are seven lolly / popsicle sticks (one of which you’ll need to cut in half with a craft knife). Hot glue half a lolly stick across the top and bottom of six sticks that are side by side.

You can decorate these however you want to. Obviously Smallest Child’s attempt is a bit more haphazard than mine but that’s the fun of it! We’ve added googly eyes and cut up pipe cleaners for arms. Once you’re finished glue a large lolly stick to the back to make it into a puppet.


Lolly stick flowers and flower bed

Toddler craft ideas | Flower craft ideas | Free Time with the Kids

This craft project started as just lolly stick flowers and quickly escalated to the flower bed as well. We even ended up making some egg cup bees to buzz around the flowers! Making the flowers themselves is really easy. Just cut out some petal shapes from coloured paper, we used tissue paper circles as the centres for the flowers. Paint the lolly sticks green then glue the petals in place and leave to dry. To make the flowerbed paint an egg box brown. Once that’s dry use scissors to cut slits in the egg box to hold the flowers in place.


Lolly stick ballerinas

Lolly stick ballerina | popsicle ballerina | Free Time with the Kids

These are a quick lolly stick craft that takes minutes to do and can be played with again and again. To make the lolly stick ballerinas simply squash a muffin case, fold in half and make a small cut in the middle. Push a lolly stick through this hole and use PVA glue to secure it all in place. Wrap a pipe cleaner around the stick to make arms (ideally secure this with hot glue if you have it). Then just draw on ballet shoes, a face and hair.


Lollystick Superheros and Villains

Not all superheros wear capes – but these ones do! We used various materials to make these lollystick superheros and villains. Pipe-cleaners, paper and cake cases plus plenty of felt-tip pens.


Lolly stick boats

Craft stick boat | Free Time with the Kids

This lolly stick craft idea seems to work best with the big popsicle sticks. Line six sticks up next to each other and glue a normal sized stick across to brace them. Then repeat at the bottom of the raft. Glue a second layer of larger sticks. Finally use a big blob of glue to secure a lolly stick mast in place, glue another stick for the top of the mast and use a napkin as a sail.

We’ve made these lolly stick boats a couple of times. They do float, but they don’t really last that long if they get water logged. My boys really enjoyed making their own versions and racing them. I’ve also seen a pretty impressive paddle boat that you can make using lolly sticks – click here for the instructions.


Chromatography butterflies

Make chromatography paper by drawing lines with washable pens onto coffee filters. Put these into a little bit of water and wait until the water line has got to the edge of the filter paper. Carefully hang these up to dry.

To make a chromatography butterfly paint or colour a lolly stick green and wrap a pipe cleaner around it to create a striped body. Secure in place with hot glue. Glue a short section of black pipe cleaner to one end to make antennae. Cut butterfly wing shapes out of the chromatography paper, including a couple of spots. Glue everything together and allow to dry.

Other lolly stick craft ideas

There are so many different craft activities that you can do using lolly sticks.

  • Use several lolly sticks to make a simple puzzle. Draw an image or shape across a few sticks and then get your pre-schooler or toddler to solve the puzzle.
  • Make a lolly stick aeroplane. You can make this as simple or as complicated as you like. For a simple bi-plane version click here or you could try and make one like this!

Lolly Stick craft ideas | Popsicle crafts | Free Time with the Kids

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