Paper chains are a great inexpensive way to decorate for a holiday or party while providing children with a fun activity and our chain of thanks gives them the opportunity to think about the blessings in their life while having fun.

Craft Supplies:

• Construction Paper - Two or more colors
• Scissors
• Glue Stick
• Ruler and Pencil

Paper chains are a great inexpensive way to decorate for a holiday or party while providing children with a fun activity. Make an orange and black chain for Halloween, red and green for Christmas, or brown, yellow, red and orange for Thanksgiving.

1. Cut strips approximately 1" x 8 ½" form the construction paper using a ruler and pencil to be sure they are uniform. [My ruler is about 1" wide so I use that as my guide.]
2. Once you have cut the strips, take one strip and over lap the ends to form a ring and glue in place.
3. Now, with a strip of your second color, pass it thru your first ring then overlap the ends and glue in place.
4. Continue as in step 3 until the chain is the length you want.

Chains can be hung from the ceiling as you would hang crape paper or draped around the room anyway your imagination decides.

Chain of Thanks: For Thanksgiving give each guest a strip on which to write what they are thankful for before making the chain. You can lengthen your chain by adding plain strips between the "Thankful for" strips. For example: Guests could be given yellow strips to write on. Then when making the chain, you could alternate a blank orange strip, blank brown strip, blank red strip then the "Thankful for" yellow strip. Continue in this fashion until chain reaches the desired length.

Tip: I cut multiple layers of strips at the same time by drawing the lines on one piece of paper and holding 2 or 3 more pieces behind the first one then I cut thru all layers together. If you have a paper cutter or rotary cutter that would also speed up the cutting process.

Printable Instructions

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