I always feel like I’m not quite ready to start the New Year in January.
I halfheartedly make resolutions whilst trying to recover from Christmas and get all my affairs in order.
Luckily for me, my family also celebrates Chinese New Year or Lunar New Year.
Lunar New Year, as the name suggests, is based on the cycles of the moon and so the date changes every year.
It can fall anywhere between late January and mid-February.
I like to think of it as a second chance to start the year.
And I’m all for second chances!
Here are 3 easy Lunar New Year crafts for children.

There are 12 animals in the Chinese zodiac.
Each year is characterised by one of these animals.
We are farewelling the Year of the Sheep to make way for the Year of the Monkey.
We made the Monkey Tic Toc above using the following items:
A wooden spoon
Orange and brown felt
Orange and brown paint
Black marker
A brown pompom
A brown pipecleaner
Brown string
2 beads
Duct tape
1. Paint the “face” of your monkey. We used orange paint in the centre and painted a brown outline.
2. Once the paint has dried, outline the face and add in eyes and a mouth.
3. Glue pompom into place for a nose.
4. Cut the ears out of felt. Use craft glue to secure on back of spoon.
5. Curl the pipecleaner to create a tail. I secured this with duct tape.
6. Thread the beads onto the string. Secure string to the back of the wooden spoon with more duct tape.Red is considered a lucky colour in Chinese culture, hence most decorations are red.
These fans were super easy to make.
We bought plain white paper fans at our local $2 shop.
I held them open as The Little Ladybird dragged her paintbrush across them.
A simple but sweet gift!
Red envelopes containing money are given to children and unmarried people.
To make our red envelopes, first we created some paintbrushes using pegs and various household items.
We then used out paintbrushes and splodged red paint onto white cardboard.
(Splodged is a word, right? It’s the only accurate way to describe what we did.)
I then cut the cardboard into rectangular pieces and folded these pieces into “envelopes.”
We held them together with washi tape.
Using yuzen paper and a paper stamp, we created the embellishments on the front of the red envelope.

I was born in the Year of the Rooster. 2017 will be the Year of the Rooster. Hurrah!
What animal are you according to the Chinese Zodiac?
Enter your birth date and find out here.

Happy Year of the Monkey!