Parents often struggle to find fun, engaging activities that keep kids entertained while teaching them about different cultures and celebrations.

Mardi Gras, with its bright colors and lively traditions, offers the perfect opportunity for creative playtime.

This blog will show parents simple, affordable mardi gras crafts for kids that bring the spirit of Mardi Gras into their homes.

These projects use basic supplies most families already have, making them perfect for last-minute activities on rainy afternoons.

The readers will find step-by-step instructions for five kid-friendly Mardi Gras crafts, tips for adapting them for different age groups, and suggestions for turning craft time into learning opportunities about the cultural significance of this festive celebration.

Everything You Need to Know About Mardi Gras

Mardi Gras, or “Fat Tuesday,” marks the final celebration before Lent begins. This colorful festival fills the streets with music, parades, and colorful beads.

In New Orleans, where American Mardi Gras finds its heart, krewes (social clubs) organize grand parades with themed floats. People crowd the routes, hoping to catch the trinkets thrown by masked riders.

The festival’s traditional colors, purple, green, and gold, appear on everything from decorations to the famous king cake, a sweet treat hiding a tiny baby figurine inside. Whoever finds it hosts next year’s party!

Mardi Gras mixes French Catholic roots with local customs into a unique cultural event. While celebrations happen worldwide, each place adds its flair to this final festivity before the solemn season begins.

Mardi Gras Crafts for Kids: Making Learning Fun

Kids love bright colors, fun masks, and making things with their hands. Mardi Gras gives them all three! It’s a perfect chance for little ones to get messy, creative, and learn about a rich cultural tradition. Let’s help them make something special that brings the party home.

The following are a few benefits of mardi gras crafts ideas for kids :

• Rich history: Mardi Gras dates back thousands of years, mixing ancient spring customs with Christian traditions before Lent begins.
• Color meaning: The classic Mardi Gras colors each stand for something – purple for justice, green for faith, and gold for power, making them great teaching tools.
• Mask tradition: Masks let people step out of daily life during the festival, offering kids a chance to find make-believe and creativity.
• Bead culture: The famous Mardi Gras beads started as simple glass beads but grew into a major symbol, perfect for counting games and pattern activities.
• Music connection: Lively jazz and zydeco music set the mood for Mardi Gras, giving kids a chance to craft instruments or dance props.
• Food elements: From king cakes to crawfish, the food icons of Mardi Gras can become craft templates for younger children.
• Parade inspiration: The grand parades with their floats offer endless craft ideas using recycled boxes and containers.

Crafting Joy: Mardi Gras Crafts for Kids

Mardi Gras crafts bring a splash of color and fun to any home with kids. These simple projects transform basic materials into festive creations while teaching children about this lively cultural tradition.

Watch their faces light up as they make their own masks, beads, and mini floats!

The following are some mardi gras crafts for kids :

1. Mardi Gras Bead Necklaces

Kids can make colorful bead necklaces using traditional Mardi Gras colors, purple, green, and gold. This craft is simple, fun, and great for enhancing motor skills.

Children can use a string and various bead sizes to create patterns or mix and match freely. It’s perfect for preschoolers and older kids alike. They can wear them or trade with friends during a mini parade or celebration.

• Materials Needed: Plastic beads (purple, green, gold), string or yarn, scissors

• How to Play: Thread beads onto the string and tie the ends to make a necklace

2. Paper Plate Mardi Gras Masks

This craft allows kids to change a paper plate into a colorful Mardi Gras mask. With a bit of cutting and decorating, children can use markers, glitter, and feathers to create festive wearable art.

It encourages creativity and personal expression. These masks can be worn for pretend play or displayed as decorations during a Mardi Gras-themed party or classroom event.

• Materials Needed: Paper plates, scissors, feathers, glitter, glue, markers, string

• How to Play: Cut eye holes and decorate the plate with colors and textures for a mask

3. Jester Hat Headbands

Kids can create their jester hats using cardstock, pom-poms, and headbands. This fun and wearable craft gives a nod to traditional Mardi Gras jesters.

Children can customize each point of the hat with different designs or bells. It’s a fun way to introduce Mardi Gras symbols while crafting something they can wear during celebrations or costume parades.

• Materials Needed: Cardstock, scissors, pom-poms, glue, headband

• How to Play: Cut hat shapes from cardstock, decorate, and attach to the headband.

4. Mardi Gras Paper Chain Garland

Kids will love making colorful paper chain garlands in Mardi Gras colors. This easy craft involves cutting and linking strips of paper to form a festive chain.

It helps develop cutting and gluing skills while decorating a space for Mardi Gras. Children can create long chains to hang around a room or classroom and even include fun messages or drawings on the links.

• Materials Needed: Construction paper (purple, green, gold), scissors, glue, or tape

• How to Play: Cut strips, loop them into chains, and glue ends to connect

5. King Cake Craft with Paint

Instead of baking, kids can make a pretend king cake using cardboard or paper plates and paint. They decorate their cake slices with sprinkles, glitter, and a paper baby inside.

This craft teaches about the tradition of the King Cake while offering a creative outlet. Display them together for a festive wall of “cakes” during Mardi Gras week.

• Materials Needed: Paper plates, paint, glitter, a mini plastic baby, or a drawing.

• How to Play: Paint the plate like a cake slice and add sparkle and baby.

6. Mardi Gras Cup Puppets

Using googly eyes, feathers, and colorful decorations, transform simple paper cups into Mardi Gras-themed puppets. Kids can make characters like jesters, queens, or parade dancers.

This craft offers creative storytelling and pretend play opportunities. After decorating, kids can put on a mini Mardi Gras puppet show using their handmade characters, practicing language and expression while having fun.

• Materials Needed: Paper cups, feathers, googly eyes, markers, glue

• How to Play: Decorate cups as characters and act out scenes with them

7. Mardi Gras Wand Craft

Using wooden dowels, ribbons, and glitter, kids can make a magical Mardi Gras wand to wave during parades or pretend play. This sparkly craft encourages imagination and movement.

They can personalize each wand with beads, bells, or their names. Once finished, kids can use their wands in a celebratory dance or as a part of a costume.

• Materials Needed: Wooden dowels, ribbon, glitter, glue, beads

• How to Play: Decorate dowels with ribbons and glitter, then wave like a wand

8. DIY Mardi Gras Crowns

Kids will enjoy crafting regal Mardi Gras crowns using foam sheets or paper. They can cut crown shapes, add gemstones, glitter, and personalize them with their names.

This activity lets children find royal Mardi Gras traditions and feel like kings or queens. Once completed, the crowns are perfect for dress-up, classroom events, or simply feeling festive at home.

• Materials Needed: Foam sheets or cardstock, scissors, gems, glue, glitter

• How to Play: Cut crown shapes, decorate with gems, and wear proudly

9. Festive Feather Fans

This craft lets kids create beautiful Mardi Gras fans using cardstock and colorful feathers. Inspired by parade costumes, these fans can be customized with sequins and stickers for extra flair.

Great for both fun and learning, the fans can be used in dances or storytelling sessions after crafting. They also make great keepsakes for Mardi Gras celebrations.

• Materials Needed: Cardstock, feathers, glue, sequins, craft sticks

• How to Play: Glue feathers to cardstock and wave like a parade fan

10. Mardi Gras Slime

Give kids a sensory-friendly craft with Mardi Gras-colored slime. They mix glue, baking soda, and contact solution with green, purple, and gold glitter for a gooey experience.

It’s a hands-on way to find colors and textures. Kids can stretch, twist, and squish their slime while learning a little chemistry and having fun at the same time.

• Materials Needed: Glue, baking soda, contact solution, food coloring, glitter

• How to Play: Mix ingredients and knead until stretchy Mardi Gras slime forms

11. Mardi Gras Confetti Cannons

Kids can create DIY confetti cannons using paper towel tubes and balloons. Decorated in Mardi Gras colors, these safe and fun launchers shoot confetti into the air, making them perfect for a party or pretend parade.

This hands-on activity combines crafting with action, keeping kids entertained and engaged. Best of all, they can refill and reuse the cannons multiple times during the celebration.

• Materials Needed: Paper towel tubes, balloons, tape, confetti, markers

• How to Play: Tape the balloon to the tube end, fill with confetti, and launch with a pull

12. Mini Parade Floats with Boxes

Using shoe boxes or tissue boxes, kids can design their own Mardi Gras parade floats. They decorate the boxes with glitter, beads, paper figures, and small toys.

This imaginative activity lets children create themes for their float and pretend to be part of a Mardi Gras parade. It’s great for group play, storytelling, or even setting up a mini parade at home or school.

• Materials Needed: Shoe boxes, glue, beads, paper, toys, glitter

• How to Play: Decorate the box as a float, then push or display it in a parade

13. Beaded Mardi Gras Trees

Create mini Mardi Gras trees by decorating cardboard cones with beads and sequins. Kids can use glue to attach sparkly ornaments and wind strands of purple, green, and gold beads around them.

These festive trees make great table decorations and allow for creative flair. It’s a low-mess activity and teaches pattern-making while encouraging fine motor skills through precise decorating.

• Materials Needed: Cardboard cones, beads, glue, sequins

• How to Play: Glue decorations to the cone until it resembles a Mardi Gras tree

14. Carnival Mask Stick Puppets

Instead of full masks, kids can make handheld mask puppets using cardstock and craft sticks. They cut out mask shapes, decorate them, and glue them to sticks for fun party play.

These are perfect for photo booths, pretend Mardi Gras performances, or classroom parades. The compact size makes them easy to handle and quick to decorate, even for younger kids.

• Materials Needed: Cardstock, craft sticks, glitter, markers, glue

• How to Play: Decorate paper masks and glue them to sticks for play or display

15. Mardi Gras Color Scratch Art

Kids love scratch art, and Mardi Gras scratch cards can be made at home using crayons and black paint. They color a white sheet in layers of Mardi Gras colors, paint over with black paint, and scratch designs to reveal hidden colors.

It’s a magical, engaging art technique that surprises every time and encourages creativity in designing masks, beads, or letters.

• Materials Needed: White paper, crayons, black paint, toothpicks

• How to Play: Color with crayons, paint over, and scratch designs to reveal colors

16. DIY Fleur-de-Lis Art

Introduce the iconic fleur-de-lis symbol to kids by crafting it with tissue paper and cardboard cutouts. Children glue tissue paper in Mardi Gras colors onto the cutout shape, creating a colorful symbol to hang on doors or walls.

It’s a fun way to mix history with hands-on crafting while developing gluing and placement skills in a colorful, festive way.

• Materials Needed: Cardboard, tissue paper, glue, scissors

• How to Play: Cut out a fleur-de-lis shape, glue tissue paper in patterns

17. Mardi Gras Tambourines

Make mini tambourines using paper plates and jingle bells. Kids decorate the plates, attach bells around the edges, and tape them together to make music.

These instruments are great for dancing, rhythm games, or a mini Mardi Gras parade. It’s a musical craft that’s both creative and energetic, perfect for groups or solo play at parties or in classrooms.

• Materials Needed: Paper plates, jingle bells, markers, glue, tape

• How to Play: Decorate plates, add bells, and shake to make sounds

18. Mardi Gras Suncatchers

Create sparkling suncatchers using contact paper and tissue paper in traditional Mardi Gras colors. Kids can cut shapes like masks or crowns and fill them with translucent paper to hang in windows.

The light shines through beautifully, creating a magical effect. It’s a gentle, relaxing activity that teaches color combinations and layering while producing a lovely result for home or school.

• Materials Needed: Contact paper, tissue paper, scissors, ribbon

• How to Play: Stick tissue paper pieces onto a contact sheet and hang in the light

19. Doubloon Toss Game Craft

Kids can make their own Mardi Gras toss game using painted cups and foam “doubloon” coins. After decorating everything in festive colors, they take turns tossing the coins into the cups.

This activity combines crafting with gameplay and helps build hand-eye coordination. It’s great for classroom stations, birthday parties, or just some festive indoor fun.

• Materials Needed: Plastic cups, paint, foam circles, markers

• How to Play: Toss foam coins into decorated cups for points

20. Mardi Gras Puzzle Art

Turn artwork into puzzles by letting kids create Mardi Gras-themed drawings on cardstock, then cutting them into jigsaw shapes.

After decorating masks, floats, or crowns, kids cut their art into several pieces and challenge themselves or friends to reassemble them. This craft blends creativity with problem-solving and is especially fun as a quiet-time activity during Mardi Gras week.

• Materials Needed: Cardstock, markers, scissors

• How to Play: Draw, cut into puzzle shapes, and solve the homemade puzzle

21. Bead Mosaic Art

Children can create beautiful Mardi Gras mosaics by gluing colored beads onto cardstock in festive patterns. They can form crowns, masks, or fleur-de-lis designs.

This craft improves fine motor skills and allows kids to experiment with symmetry and design. Plus, the finished product looks dazzling and is great for displaying on bulletin boards or refrigerators.

• Materials Needed: Cardstock, glue, small beads (purple, green, gold)

• How to Play: Glue beads into Mardi Gras-themed shapes and let them dry

22. Mask Collage Art

Kids can design collage-style Mardi Gras masks using scraps of paper, magazines, and craft supplies. They glue different textures and shapes onto pre-cut masks for a funky, artistic look.

This activity encourages imaginative use of materials and lets kids find visual balance and texture. The masks can be worn or strung up as part of a party backdrop.

• Materials Needed: Mask cutouts, magazine scraps, glue, ribbon

• How to Play: Decorate mask cutouts with mixed materials and wear or display

23. Mardi Gras Balloon Faces

Kids turn balloons into fun Mardi Gras characters by drawing faces and adding paper hats, feathers, or googly eyes. These balloon buddies can be used for games or as decorations.

It’s an easy craft that adds a pop of color and fun to the celebration while also improving artistic expression and motor coordination.

• Materials Needed: Balloons, markers, feathers, googly eyes, tape

• How to Play: Inflate balloons and decorate with faces and accessories

24. Foil Crown Wraps

Wrap headbands or paper strips in gold foil to make sparkling Mardi Gras crowns. Kids can add stickers, jewels, or glitter to personalize their regal wear. This shiny craft is great for photo ops and costume day at school.

It combines texture play with pretend royalty themes that are perfect for Mardi Gras celebrations and encourages kids to express their inner king or queen.

• Materials Needed: Aluminum foil, paper strips, glue, stickers

• How to Play: Wrap paper in foil, decorate, and wear like a crown

25. Parade Baton Twirlers

Make DIY parade batons using paper towel rolls, ribbon, and tape. Kids decorate their batons with stickers, streamers, and paint, then use them for pretend parades or dance routines.

It’s a fantastic way to promote movement and rhythm, especially for high-energy kids. The batons are also great props for performances, encouraging creativity through both crafting and physical activity.

• Materials Needed: Paper towel rolls, ribbon, tape, paint, stickers

• How to Play: Decorate and twirl the baton while dancing or marching

Wrapping It Up

Mardi Gras crafts for kids offer more than just a fun afternoon activity. They create lasting memories while teaching little ones about cultural traditions and artistic expression.

By making masks, parade floats, or beaded decorations, children develop fine motor skills and creative thinking. They learn about colors, patterns, and the joy of making something with their own hands.

Parents will find these projects create natural opportunities for conversations about different cultures and celebrations around the world. The crafts become keepsakes that families can bring out year after year.

So gather your supplies, put on some lively music, and get ready for some colorful chaos!

The smiles on their faces and the pride in their creations will be worth every bit of glitter you’ll be finding around the house for weeks to come.