Summer is here and the kids are outside more and more. Whether it’s summer camp, playing in the park, or just hanging out in the neighborhood, outdoors is where it’s at! This is a fun project that can be made (outside if you want to!) easily and with little supervision. When done, have fun tossing your new paper plate frisbee around with your friends, but don’t let the dog get it!
Paper Plate Frisbee
This easy kids craft will keep them occupied throughout the summer. Kids will love personalizing their frisbees with their artwork and fun ideas! It also makes a great camp craft to do with a group. All you need are paper plates, tape, scissors, and crayons or markers to decorate with.
How to Make Paper Plate Frisbees
One package of paper plates will make a LOT of frisbees, so if your kids have friends over, or you’re looking for a project for camp or a classroom, this frisbee craft is perfect. This project is easy for kids, but younger children may need a little help from a grown-up.
- Place both plates right side up, as if you were going to put food on them. Cover them with clear shipping tape, allowing the excess tape to overlap, but do not fold it over. Use scissors to cut off the excess around the plate.
- Turn the plates upside down and use markers or crayons to decorate as you wish.
- Place both plates together so that the decorated sides are facing out. Holding the plates together, cut a circle out of the center of each plate.
- Place both plates, decorated side facing up, onto the work surface. Using the clear shipping tape, cover the decorated side, overlapping the center circle. Fold the edges over through the center circle and trim the edges of the outside of the plate.
When the kids are done, have a throwing competition to see whose goes the farthest. You can also have art competitions and award ribbons or pins to most creative, most colorful, most unique, and so on.
Have a lot of leftover paper plates?
We have ideas for you to put them to use!
- These colorful Paper Plate Tropical Fish are a fun painting craft the kids will love.
- A great summer project using paper plates would be these beautiful Watermelon Suncatchers. Hang them up in the window for a pretty display the kids will be proud of.
- Or you can check out our entire collection of paper plate crafts for kids!
Paper Plate Frisbees
Supplies
- 2 paper plates for each frisbee
- colorful markers or crayons
- clear shipping tape
Craft tools
Instructions
- Place both plates right side up, as if you were going to put food on them. Cover them with clear shipping tape, allowing the excess tape to overlap, but do not fold it over. Use the scissors to cut off the excess around the plate.
- Turn the plates upside down and use markers or crayons to decorate as you wish.
- Place both plates together so that the decorated sides are facing out. Holding the plates together, cut a circle out of the center of each plate.
- Place both plates, decorated side facing up, onto the work surface. Using the clear shipping tape, cover the decorated side, overlapping the center circle. Fold the edges over through the center circle and trim the edges of the outside of the plate.
- Place the two plates together, decorative side facing outward, and tape all of the edges together.
Expert Tips & FAQs
This post originally appeared here on Jun 24, 2012.
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Pdwheel says
I was having trouble understanding the tape that is cut out and then folded over, but if we can staple them or glue them together, I can use this for a “take-home” project as I never know if the kids have access to wide shipping tape. I am sure they will love them.
William Simancas says
Can we use duct tape?
Amb Ambs says
Great! I am apart of a missions trip arts and crafts section and can’t wait for the kids to use these!!! And can’t wait to use more of your guys crafts! They look so fun!!!❤
Beth says
I love this idea. Sounds expensive though with all the tape. I need to have crafts for about 100 kids. Is there a cheaper way to do?
Amanda Formaro says
Hi Beth! I only covered the plates in tape in case they were left outside or got wet somehow. Aside from attaching them together, you don’t need to cover the plates with tape :)
Jessie says
HI, did this with my daughter weeks ago
it was so easy.
she took the frisbee with her to school and they adapted it into crafting class :D
thanks for sharing :D
Amanda Formaro says
How fun!
Ehsan says
Can you send me a video of you making it so that I can understand it better. I am a visual person. Thanks !!
Amanda Formaro says
Sorry I don’t have a video for this project
Jessie says
Ehsan, it is not so hard to understand even without a video…. simple draw on two paperplates and then glue or tape them together :D
Andrea says
Hi I run a saturday club for 3 to 9 year olds in Tenerife in the Canary Islands, (of the coast of Africa)! great idea but just one question, What is Shipping tape? is it sticky? and why do you use t? I hope these are’nt dumb questions, i’ve had a go at making them and just used a tacky glue to stick them together, but I’m still curious, so could you please put me out of my misery!!!
Amanda Formaro says
Hi Andrea! Shipping tape, or mailing tape, is just a clear tape used when closing boxes for shipping and mailing purposes. The reason I used the shipping tape was twofold: 1) to hold everything together, and 2) to protect the drawings and the paper plates from any rain or spills from the kids. :)
Andrea says
Ahhh, thanks Amanda! since writing this I have actually made one using a strong thick clear tape, and it works great, my craft club will be making them in the autumn so will post a picture if that’s possible!.
Amanda Formaro says
Looking forward to it!
Shelly says
Amanda, Thanks for this really cute idea. I work for an after school youth program and one of my duties is craft instructor. I’m always looking for crafts projects that can be done in 1/2 hours time and with 10 t0 12 students at a time , kindergarten thru 5th grade. And on a limited budget. I haven’t done these yet because it’s summer break but can’t wait to give it try.
Thanks again, Shelly
Amanda Formaro says
Thanks so much Shelly! Sounds like a fun job! :)
valleygirl says
Wow, we read these directions a few times and we are totally lost. Just going off the picture and going to do our own thing but the tape directions make no sense at all. I’m not sure how everyone else hasn’t noticed? Or are we just having an off day over here? Great idea, just really poorly written (and with spelling errors, ugh).
Amanda Formaro says
Hi Valley girl. I wrote to you via email but didn’t receive a response. I went over the instructions again and they look fine to me, though I did correct the spelling errors, thanks for pointing that out. Let me know where you are having trouble and I will do my best to help.
Anna says
It looks like the entire plate, inside and out are being covered with tape before the edges are taped together with some tape being folded over the center circles to make it more durable. I don’t know how it changes how they fly. If you are doing this as a one time thing, you could probably just staple the plates together. You could probably use clear contact paper as well, but it is a thicker mil and may weigh it down too much… It could make a good science experiment to see how different methods fly. It appears that the objective is to just cover it all without any big amounts of excess getting in the way by trimming the outside edges.
Anna says
And I have typos, too… ?
CeCe of twins says
Can’t believe you were having problems doing this. She even stated in a different post that she was doing the tape incase the kids left them outside in the rain . Simple as pie to understand her directions. And really, calling out her typo errors? You could have replied back to her tho, since she did reach out
SMGK91 says
Valleygirl, I find your comment extremely rude and uncalled for. The instructions are perfectly clear, as you stated, I think it is more of a problem on your side and not being able to follow simple instructions rather than the way the post has been written. As we teach kids, if you have nothing nice to say, don’t say anything at all, especially when somene is trying to help.
Charles Masterson says
Or you can just look at the photo.
Kelsey says
These were great! This helped me and my son get his homework done! He is in Kindergarten and this was the perfect thing for him to do on his own with my supervision! My Preschool daughter made one too (I just had to do the cutting)!
Amanda says
That’s great Kelsey, so glad you had fun with it!
barbara burns says
so clever
jet says
wooow this is a cool awesome idea!!!
Loved it!!!!
Thank you for sharing it, and the great tute as well;-D
Hallie says
Cute! :)
Amanda says
Thank Hallie :)
Nancy says
I love doing RECYCED CRAFTS ,SEASONAL CRAFTS.
Amanda says
Thanks Nancy :)