How to Use Old Newspapers to Make Useful Paper Items

Difficulty: Easy

Instructions

Step 1

Make a Baseball and Bat

Use old newspapers to make a baseball by taking a newspaper page and crushing it to a form of a tight, round shape. Wrap tape around the round shape to maintain the shape and to make it firm. Wrap this in another page of newspaper and form it into a tight ball by squeezing and shaping it. Wrap the ball with more tape to hold the ball in shape. If you desire the ball to be larger, repeat this process with more pages of newspaper till you achieve the desired size.

Use more old newspapers to make a bat by taking 12-20 sheets of newspaper and rolling it up tightly to form a strong, hard stick or bat. Tape the seams down by wrapping tape around the tube in several places. This paper craft is a great use for the sport pages!
Step 2

Fire Logs and Kindling

Make newspaper fire logs by taking 10 pages of newspaper. Lay them out in an overlapped manner (as seen in the photo), then roll the formation of papers into a loose log about 3-4 inches in diameter. The logs won’t burn if they are rolled too tightly; place some tape on the seam to hold the log together.

To make newspaper kindling for fires, loosely roll a newspaper page diagonally across the page, then take the two ends and tie a loose knot in the middle of the roll.
Step 3

Drink Coasters

Make absorbent drink coasters from old newspapers by taking one half of a newspaper page and folding it in half. Use paper folding to fold that down into thirds. You will now have a long strip of paper that you will fold into thirds once again, bringing one end into the other to secure it in place and then smoothing the edges down firmly.
Step 4

Toilet Brush Holder

Take six sheets newspaper page and roll them into a wide cylinder shape about four inches in diameter and staple the edges in place. Crunch up newspaper to place into the bottom of the cylinder and staple it. Place more crumpled up layers of newspaper at the bottom to better absorb the moisture from the toilet brush.

Another option is to crunch up some paper to place into the bottom of your existing toilet brush holder to absorb bacteria forming liquid from setting and accumulating.

When the papers become messy, toss it and add new paper to the bottom; or make a new toilet brush holder.
Step 5

Create a Paper Hat

For a fun paper craft for kids that uses paper folding techniques, fold a newspaper page in half width-wise. Now use the center of the top of the current page (where the fold now is) and fold the sides in towards the middle, forming a triangle shape (use photos as a guide). Take each of the flaps on the bottom and fold each one up to form an upward flap on each side. Glue or tape the edges of these flaps to hold the hat together. This fun paper hat is now ready to be worn.
Step 6

Make a Seedling Pot

To make a small pot to start seedlings in, fold a newspaper page in half length wise, then in half length wise again. Wrap the strip around your fingers (use photos as a guide). After you have wrapped a little over half of the newspaper length, make a diagonal fold in the remaining portion, so that the strip now points toward the end of your hand. Now bring the end of the paper back up and tuck it inside the pot frame, creating a bottom surface for the pot.
Step 7

Use as wrapping paper

Foods can be wrapped and stored in old newspapers to absorb excess liquid, grease and to insulate foods enabling them to be kept at proper temperatures.

Newspaper also makes nice gift wrapping by choosing attractive pages with collages or images; such as the comic section of old newspapers. It can also serve as a fun paper craft for kids who can personally color or paint their own artistic images on the newspaper page.
Step 8

Book-rest and Page Holder

Fold two sheets of newspaper page together to a single page size and roll it to form a hollow tube. Tape the seams in place, but leave the ends open. Crease the tube in two places so that it makes a tall, thin triangle form.

Next, fold a newspaper page to a half page size and roll it tightly to form a rod, and tape the seams in place. Bend the rod in half and slip each end of the rod into each opening of the tube. This rod can be slid up or down in order to fit different size books.

Make two of these in order to hold both ends of a book open and in place.
Step 9

Newspaper Furnishings

Tightly rolled newspaper rods can be laid side by side to build strong bamboo style tables, stands and shelves.

Use paper folding by folding a newspaper page into strips that can be weaved and made into baskets or use paper folding techniques to create newspaper picture frames.
Step 10

Collect your own old newspapers for making useful paper items. You can also request that others save their old newspapers for you to use; pick up free newspapers where they are available, or even pick up old newspapers from recycling centers.

For smaller paper items, you can choose to use pages from old magazines in order to select pages for paper folding that make your project more colorful.