Combining colorful, swirling skirts and intense emotional music, flamenco is an art form native to the Andalusia region of Spain, where the Romani community danced flamenco, dating back many centuries. Today, dancers all over the world enjoy flamenco, and the art form as earned recognition from UNESCO as an Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity. If your little one is crazy about this art form, she will leap at the chance to make some flamenco dancer crafts.
Paper Fans
Your budding flamenco dancer will need the standard flamenco accessories. Show her how to make her own paper fan by folding an 8 1/2-by-11-inch piece of paper accordion style and stapling the pieces together at one end to create a point. She can use markers or crayon to color the fan in the vibrant hues of flamenco costumes. Or, buy a simple, blank fan at a party supply store that she can decorate in her own unique style.
Flamenco Paper Doll
Flamenco dresses are full of flounces, ruffles and bold colors. Have your child try her hand at designing one with a paper doll craft. Use the body of one of her paper dolls as a base or trace a picture from one of her books and cut out that picture as a model for the body. Show her how to trace around the body to create the flamenco dress. Or, you can make a felt board with the image of a dancer, and your child can cut felt in different colors to make a flamenco dress.
Flamenco Collage
Transform a stack of your old magazines into art by making a flamenco collage. Have your child look for a full-body picture of a person and help her cut out the photo. Depending on her age, have your child glue this image to a piece of card stock or you can glue it for her. She can search for other pictures to create a whimsical flamenco dress. Ocean waves can look like rows of ruffles for the skirt or the sleeves. Colorful flower pictures – even photos of flowers you cut up and rearrange to make a smaller flower collage can represent flowers, and a triangle of lace or can represent a fan. Encourage her to get creative to create a unique art collage.
Flower Crafts
No flamenco costume is complete without flowers to wear in your hair. Instead of live foliage that will d die, you can make your own headpiece that will last indefinitely. Show your child how to create flowers by pinching the center of a circle of tissue paper. Hold your child's creation in place with a rubber band. Or, use leftover pieces of crepe paper rolled into rose shapes, fastened with rubber bands. For a more realistic effect, let your child pick out some artificial flowers from a craft store, which you can attach to barrettes using craft glue or a tacky glue.
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Writer Bio
Piaf Azul is a writer based in Austin, Texas. Since 2000, her work has appeared on numerous websites, including A Healthy Me, My Online Wellness and CVS Caremark. Azul is a graduate of the University of Texas at Austin, where she earned a Bachelor of Arts in Latin American studies.