Dhanteras Craft – Day 1 of Diwali

Diwali is celebrated over 5 days. Day 1, also called Dhanteras, is the day to go shopping!
Traditionally, people buy either pots and pans or jewelry. I have such fond memories of visiting the markets with my Mom and I tried very hard to capture that in our book as well.
Let’s celebrate Dhanteras by making this simple cardboard bracelet craft!
Step 1. Get some toilet paper or paper towel rolls. Cut a slit so that you can open and wrap it around your child’s wrist. I cut the roll in half to fit my kid’s wrist.
Step 2. Apply glue all over the cardboard.
Step 3. Use lots of decorative materials including gems and glitters. We especially loved using flower gems for this craft,
Step 4. Stick them all over the cardboard roll. We did them in horizontal stripes.
And your Dhanteras cardboard bracelet is ready!

Diwali craft for kids – Decorative Diya

Diwali, the festival of lights from India, is the biggest festival of India. It is time for joyful celebration, sweets and of course, fireworks and lights!

Learn about Diwali and its 5 days of celebration from this Bestselling book.

Diya is the clay lamp used during Diwali to light up the whole house.

Here is a fun craft for kids to make their own decorative Diya.

What you’ll need

Construction paper

Scissors/Glue

Gold paper circles – or cut with scissors to make the shape

Felt circles– or cut with scissors to make the shape

Cake circles – Or stick gold paper on cardboard

Step 1. Cut a felt circle into half to make a semi-circle.

Step 2. Glue a felt circle and a semi-circle to a cake circle. The semi-circle is for the lamp and the full circle makes the background of the flame.

Step 3. Add more layers to the flame background by gluing a gold paper circle to the felt circle.

Step 4. Cut construction paper to cut a big and a small flame shape. We used a squeeze punch to do this.

Step 5. Glue the 2 flames shapes on the flame background. Your Diya craft is now complete!