How to Make a Macaroni Birthday Card

Macaroni come in a wide selection of styles.

Macaroni comes in a wide variety of shapes, colors and styles, making it a versatile decoration for homemade birthday cards. It is also easy to handle, so even children with less developed fine motor skills can create a macaroni birthday card. If you're an older child, teen or adult, you can use the macaroni technique to create more complicated designs or intricate mosaics.

Things You'll Need

• Drawing paper
• Pencil
• Card stock
• Markers or pencil crayons
• Macaroni
• White school glue
• Embellishments

Instructions

1. Fold a piece of card stock in half. Although construction paper works as well, card stock is much stronger and less likely to bend with macaroni glued to it.

2. Write your birthday greeting inside of the card using markers or pencil crayons. Also, if you will be writing "Happy Birthday" or anything else on the cover of the card, now is the time to do it. Once macaroni is glued to the card, writing on it will be much more difficult.

3. Sketch the design you want to make out of macaroni on a scrap piece of paper. Experiment with different designs until you are satisfied.

4. Organize pieces of macaroni on the table to form the same design you drew in your sketch. This will allow you to experiment with different proportions and types of macaroni before you glue it to your card.

5. Draw small sections of your design on the cover of the card with white school glue, using similar proportions as you did when laying the macaroni out on the table. White school glue dries clear, so don't worry if it looks messy when wet. If you are an adult, you can substitute crazy glue for white school glue, giving the macaroni a firmer hold.

6. Remove the corresponding pieces of macaroni from the design on the table and place it on the glue. Make sure to press each piece of macaroni down and avoid knocking it until it has had a few minutes to set.

7. Continue drawing your design with glue and placing macaroni on the glue until your design is complete.

8. Wait two or three hours until the glue has dried.

9. Decorate the remainder of the card with paint, beads, glitter, colored glue, stickers, felt, pipe cleaners, scraps of paper or anything else you choose.

Tips & Warnings

• For younger children, don't worry about having them lay out their designs before hand. Instead, let them squirt glue on the front of the card and have fun placing macaroni on it in various locations.