DIY: April Showers & Rainbows Craft

It’s Spring, which means it’s the season for sun showers and rainbows. Grab some leftover yarn for this fun and easy craft for your kids that will brighten their day.

This could also make for a good classroom craft during Springtime months. We can’t help but smile at these two cuties: our pom pom rain cloud and rainbow. Make them yourself by following the easy steps below.

Showers & Rainbows Craft Supplies:

Yarn in desired colors (we used white + blues and rainbow colors)
Three sheets of construction paper (yellow, blue, purple – you can choose any)
Cardboard
White paint & brushes if you plan to paint your clouds (optional)
Facial features – googly eyes or yarn
Pom Pom Maker (totally optional, but a game-changer)
Scissors
Pencil
Glue (depending on if you plan to cover the cloud white poster board)

Instructions:

1. Begin by taking your cardboard and roughly sketching out a cloud. If it makes it easier, you can use a tin or a glass to help you trace the bubbles of the cloud. Cut out your cloud as best as possible. Our cardboard was quite stiff, so you may find it easier to cut it out roughly first, and then cut the details after. That’s what we did.

2. If you wish, paint your cardboard white to look like a cloud (or gray or blue or pink – whatever color you want). We added a white poster board to our cardboard pieces to make them look similar to the clouds in the sky. Do this by tracing the cloud and then cutting the white poster board out to glue to your cardboard.

3. Cut some “nicks” all-around your cloud, to help position your yarn as you go around. Tie or tape a piece of yarn to the cloud and start wrapping it around. If you need, you can add extra nicks to the cardboard as you go, but we started with a lot knowing we will keep wrapping our yarn around and around. The lovely thing about these clouds is that you can “yarn wrap” them as much or as little as you want.

4. Lastly, add the yarn pom-poms for rain or the different strands of the colored yard to form a rainbow out of the cloud. We made both!

Each pom-pom should take about five minutes to make. We decided to make five pom-poms in different shades of blue. They can all be the same color or rainbow colors. It’s your choice. Work with what you have and what you want! Make sure that you leave ONE LONG piece of yarn when tying a knot to make the pom-pom so you can use that later to hang from your cloud.

Once you have all your pom-poms, then it’s time to arrange them below the cloud in the order that you want them to hang to look like raindrops. They can be at different lengths, diagonal, or into a V-shape.

5. To make the rainbow part of the project, we used a popsicle stick to connect, but you can use leftover cardboard or whatever you have. Cut out a long thin rectangle piece to wrap the colored yarn to form the rainbow below the cloud. Cut the piece of cardboard a little shorter than the cloud is wide.

Then cut small strands of yarn in the various colors below: four reds, four oranges, four yellows, four greens, four blues, and four purples. We wrapped each of the four strands over our popsicle stick (or rectangle piece) and tied it in a knot.

6. Now that you have completed your rainbow/pom-pom cloud, we’re ready to add facial features. We glued on googly eyes, a black yarn mouth, and rose yarn cheeks.