Free Chinese New Year Printables for the Year of the Horse
We at TomatoInk constantly strive to bring all of our customers’ diverse reasons and different ways to celebrate various holidays. Earlier we brought you some printable Christmas Tree Ornaments and spooky Halloween printables. Our team has now designed some printable dancing tigers / dragons to help you celebrate the upcoming Chinese New Year.
In case you’re wondering, the Chinese Year begins on the 31st of January, 2014. The Chinese Zodiac consists of a 12 year cycle; with each year being the year of a particular animal. This coming year is to be the Year of the Horse. Dragon and Tiger dances, while wearing traditional costumes, are a part of the time-honored festivities for celebrating the Chinese New Year. It is believed that the traditional dance can help to ward off evil spirits.
While traditional dancing tigers/dragons are very large objects meant to be donned by two people to dance in, we have created a small scale version – a sort of puppet that is symbolic and is really simple to print out and use.
What You Will Need:
- Good quality printing paper or card stock
- A printer with a reasonably new ink cartridge
- Safety scissors (use these if you’re involving kids)
- Burgundy red/orange paper
- Glue
- Two disposable chopsticks or barbecue skewers made from wood
- Glitter, feathers, streamers or other decorations
What To Do:
- Click on the link that says “Head” to see the PDF page of the head open up. Print this and cut along the dotted line to get the shape of the head.
- Similarly, click on the link that says “Tail” and a PDF printable for the tail opens up. Print this as well and cut along the dotted line to get the shape of the tail.
- For the middle part of the puppet you simply need a long strip of red paper. Fold this in half and then fold it as shown – in a way that resembles an accordion.
- Now stick the head and tail cut outs at either end of the red piece of paper.
- Take one chopstick or barbecue skewer and stick this to the head; and use the other one for the tail
- Now use glitter, sequins, beads, ribbons, streamers or feathers – put on your creative hat and think of different ways to decorate your puppet – and your Chinese New Year Puppet it ready!
This can be a toy for a child or can act as room or wall décor. To ensure that you never miss out on any of our fun printable craft ideas for holidays and other significant life events, you can subscribe to our newsletter by leaving us your email address. You can also keep track of events, special offers and freebies by liking us or following us on Facebook.