Cool Things to Do With Tracing Paper

Create glowing fireflies for your children to play with outside in the dark. Cut a sheet of construction paper in half and wrap it around a soda bottle. Tape it in place for the thorax of the firefly. Make antennae from pipe cleaners wrapped around the neck of the soda bottle. Make legs from pipe cleaners of the same color. Use the tracing paper to make wings for the firefly. Add craft eyes to the front of the bottle and place a glowing yellow fluorescent light stick into the bottle through the hole in the neck and replace the cap of the soda bottle. Kids will have a blast playing with their glowing fireflies.

Create colorful paper flowers for a special occasion using tracing paper and wooden skewers. Trace several different flower shape sizes onto the tracing paper and a large flower from construction paper. Make a cone from a complementary piece of construction paper for the main piece of the flower. The color of the construction paper will show through the tracing paper. Wrap a wooden skewer in florist's tape and tape it to the back of large petals. Create a dozen of these flowers and place them into a clay pot filled with green florist's foam. Conceal the florist's foam by covering it with moss.

Tracing paper can be used to hold fragrant potpourri sachets that look like they belong in an expensive boutique. Cut an 6-inch square of a colorful silk fabric and a 5-inch square of tracing paper. The tracing paper will be the lining for your sachet. Add dried flowers or scented potpourri to the center of the tracing paper and fold it in half over the potpourri. Staple the seams together to keep the potpourri sealed inside. Fold the fabric in half so that the pattern is on the inside and sew three sides together. Flip the fabric with the pattern on the outside and place the tracing paper holder inside the cavity. Sew up the final seam and decorate it with ribbons or sequins.

Use tracing paper to create a votive candle holder that will cast romantic, dimmed lighting. Hot glue four craft sticks together into a square. Cut out squares of tracing paper that will fit over the squares. Draw a personalized and creative design onto the paper that will be accented nicely by the votive candle inside the holder. Create three more squares with tracing paper. Make another square with craft sticks and use a piece of thick plastic, such as a CD case, to cover the hole in the square. The plastic will form the base of the lantern and contain the wax from the votive as it melts. Use hot glue to fasten the wooden squares together. Display the lantern on a table and light the candle inside to admire the designs drawn onto the tracing paper.