Cleo Papanikolas It’s no secret why everyone loves Hanukkah. You have eight days of yummy fried food, time together with family, and if you live in my house, a once-a-year highly competitive dreidel competition! Whether you are spinning for the traditional gelt (chocolate coins) or, as my family opts for, the more delicious Hershey kisses, dreidel is a great tradition for all generations to get involved in. Start the fun with creating your own custom dreidel using Cleo’s printable. Plus if you have kids (or kids at heart) this is a great way to make sure no one tries to claim the winning dreidel as their own! Happy Hanukkah!
Erin – Creativebug Marketing Manager
Hi I‘m Cleo. You may recognize me from my Creativebug daily practice classes: Painting Repeat Patterns By Hand: A Daily Practice and Learn to Paint with Gouache: A Daily Practice in Questions and Answers . I’m a painter, author, educator, and I especially love making things with paper. Book arts was one of my favorite classes in school. Lately I’ve been making scarves that look like artistic charts for my Patreon scarf club.
This dreidel printable {download the free PDF here} can be simple and quick, or you can customize, update, and decorate all you want. Print out the artwork on cardstock. Check to make sure that you are printing at 100% size. I achieved the bright colors by printing it on matte photo paper. If you are working with thin photocopies, you can try gluing it to cereal box cardboard.
The basic supplies are scissors, a glue stick, and a pencil (short ones spin better). I encourage you to get out all your favorite sequins, fringe, and craft supplies and really make it your own. If you plan to play competitively with your dreidel it is very important to distribute the weight evenly. If you glue a penny to one side, you must repeat it evenly on all sides, or expect to be disqualified when your dreidel always falls the same way.
Supplies for Paper Dreidel
- Printed copies of dreidel art (print at 100%)
- Scissors
- Glue stick
- Craft knife for cutting the pencil hole (if your scissors don’t have a sharp point)
- Pencils or chopsticks (you can cut them short with garden clippers)
Optional Supplies
- Embroidery thread & needle
- Beads
- Glue gun
- Pennies
- Sequins
- Googly eyes
- Crepe paper fringe
- Glitter
- Ribbon
- Stickers
How to Assemble Your Paper Dreidel
- Cut around the outside of the dreidel art
- Fold on the black dotted lines
- Cut the x where the pencil pierces the top
- Glue the flaps and fold up the dreidel
- Insert the pencil until it reaches the point and make sure it is straight. You may need to put some glue around it if it is loose
Custom Fringe and Coins
The impatient crafter can tape some fringe to the top of the dreidel. For my custom example I sewed through the flaps before assembling, then tied beads on the ends, trying to make the lengths even. I glued the pennies on with hot glue which is easy to pick off if you want to spend them later.
