Year of the Snake Craft for Chinese New Year

January 29 marks the start of the Year of the Snake. I love making snake crafts, so I couldn't pass up the chance to add a project inspired by Chinese New Year to my repertoire. Affiliate links below. 

Year of the Snake Craft for Kids

Materials: 

• red paper
• pencil (11-year old me would have LOVED these)
• scissors
• gold Sharpie
• craft glue

Steps: 

If the red paper you are using is single-sided, turn it upside down so the white side shows. If it's double-sided (like cardstock or construction paper), you're ready to go no matter what side is up. 

Starting in the center of the paper, draw a spiral. When you have just about filled the paper (or made a snake as large as you want), stop making the spiral and turn that final line into the snake's head by curving it around to meet back up with the previous loop of the spiral.

Use the scissors to cut along the line you drew. Your cut-out snake will look like this. It's hard to see the coils on the scan, but they're obvious in real life. 

In order to make it more visible for this tutorial, I cut a sliver off of the spiral to give better definition. This is totally optional. 

Before you get rid of your scraps, cut a forked tongue and glue it behind the snake's head. Then use a gold Sharpie to decorate your snake. You can use stripes, geometric patterns, or florals. When you get to the head, draw an eye on either side by making vertical lines and then putting a dot in the middle of each line. Finally, add nostrils.  

You can display your snake flat, or you can hang it. The coils will spiral down with a neat effect.