Summer has officially arrived today! And it’s come in with very warm temperatures here! One way to cool off might be to have a paper fan handy to wave in front of your face.
No electricity required so it’s good for wherever you might be. You will need a piece of paper, (I used a 12 inch square piece of scrapbook paper) scissors, glue, a piece of thin string or thread and 2 craft sticks or popsicle sticks.
If your paper has writing along the edge, trim that off first.
Fold your paper in half and crease it firmly.
Use your scissors to cut along the crease. Or if you want to, use a ruler and pencil to make a line on the crease on the backside of the paper that makes it easier to see where to cut.
Now you will make several creases in the paper that will help you fold it like an accordion. Using one piece of the cut paper at a time, fold the paper in half by bringing to 2 short ends together.
Fold it in half again in the same direction. It will look like a rectangle now. Crease firmly.
Open the paper back up one fold so you can see the middle fold.
Now fold each side in so the ends meet on the middle fold.
Open the paper all the way open now.
Next, turn the paper over. Beginning at one end, fold the front side of the paper in to meet the first crease. You will be making one fold in between each crease you already made.
Turn the paper right side up and make another fold in the other direction. This is the “accordion” part. Continue folding the paper back and forth until the entire paper has been folded into an accordion.
Repeat the folding steps with the second piece of paper.
We want to make the accordion part longer, so now you’ll need to glue the 2 pieces together.
You will have 1 piece of accordion folded paper.
Pinch it all together to firm up the folds.
Bend your fan in half to get an estimate of where the middle of the fan is.
Open the fan up again and wrap a piece of string or thread several times around the middle.
Tie a good knot and trim off the ends of the string.
Fan out the paper and glue the 2 sides together to form half of the fan.
Glue 1 craft stick to each side of the straight edges of the fan. Leave enough of the stick hanging out past the end of the paper so you have some stick to hold onto as you wave the fan.
And your fan is now ready to be used to keep you cool in the summer heat!
You can make one for yourself or make more for your friends and relatives. I hope you’ll have fun making fans and that you’ll have a wonderful summer! 🙂
The Kids Niche 