How to Build a Diamond Shaped Kite From a Garbage Bag

The kite is ready to fly as soon as the glue dries.

Flying a kite can be an opportunity to spend some quality time with your family and friends, but unless you are a hardcore kite fan, you only need one for the occasional windy day. Instead of spending between $15 and more than $100 for a commercial kite, you can create one of your own, using easy-to-find materials and decorate it as you desire. Children can also contribute to various stages of this craft and learn more about the parts of a kite and what makes it fly.

Things You'll Need

• Garbage bag
• Measuring tape
• Protractor
• Ruler
• Marker
• Scissors
• Barbecue bamboo skewers
• Wood glue
• String

Instructions

1. Stretch a garbage bag and lay it on the floor. Do not cut open the bag, as you need one side of the bag to be on top of the other.

2. Use a measuring tape and a protractor to determine the position of a right triangle's corners on the garbage bag. The sides of the triangle must measure 11 inches, 6 inches and 12.5 inches, while their opposite angles must measure 61, 29 and 90 degrees respectively. The 12.5-inch side must lay directly on the edge of the bag.

3. Place a dot on the corners' positions with a marker. Use a ruler to design the triangle's sides -- you don't have to draw the 12.5-inch side as it lays directly on the bag's edge.

4. Cut across the triangle's sides with a pair of scissors, to remove it from the garbage bag. Unfold the triangle to get a diamond shape. Place the diamond on a flat surface.

5. Place a 12-inch barbecue bamboo skewer vertically on the diamond, to connect its top and bottom corners and another skewer horizontally, to connect the left and right corners. Use wood glue on the spot where the skewers meet to hold them together and apply sticky tape to connect the skewers' edges with the four corners of the diamond.

6. Draw a 5-by-60-inch rectangle on another big garbage bag and cut it out. Tie one end of the rectangle on the skewer at the bottom corner of the diamond kite, to add the tail.

7. Tie the end of a long piece of string on the skewers' meeting point and the end of another piece of string directly above the tail. When you fly the kite, hold both pieces of string and pull one or another to adjust the kite in mid-air.