Easy rangoli craft with stickers

The perfect craft for young children for Diwali: let’s make an easy rangoli craft using stickers!

Easy rangoli craft made with stickers

Here’s an easy rangoli craft young children can make for the Indian festival of Diwali using stickers to make the colourful, repeating patterns of this traditional decoration.

This article is one of our Diwali activities and crafts for children resources.

In this article, you can:

:: learn about the Indian festival of Diwali

:: learn about rangoli: what they are and how they are made

:: make an easy rangoli craft, inspired by the traditional Indian designs, using stickers

:: find links to more rangoli crafts and Diwali activities for children

Ready-made Diwali Unit

If you’re a member of our Play Academy you can download a ready-made five day Diwali Unit and you’ll be ready to lead a week of fun and educational Diwali activities with your children.

This Unit is part of our Festivals specialist curriculum pathway, and is a part of a set of ready-made units you can use to teach your children about the festivals of the world all through the year. Based on the teaching philosophy of hands-on learning, the Play Academy festivals curriculum is engaging, effective and loved by children.

See more details of this Diwali Unit, and all the other specialist curriculum pathways and ready-made units you can choose from, in the Play Academy here.

Materials needed

:: paper plates or circles of paper / card

:: pencil or marker pen

:: a selection of brightly coloured stickers in a variety of geometric shapes: circles, squares, stars, and hearts in pink, orange, green, blue, yellow for example

What are rangoli?

Rangoli are brightly coloured decorations created on the floor. They are associated with the Indian festival of Diwali.

During Diwali, the entrances of houses are decorated with rangoli patterns made from coloured sand, to welcome guests.

Begin this craft by using our guide to rangoli lesson to introduce your children to these decorations. Take a look at the designs, see how they are made, and talk about the colours and patterns used.

Then it’s time for your children to make their own rangoli.

How to make a simple rangoli craft using stickers

For this easy child-version of a rangoli craft were going to use brightly coloured stickers in place of the dyed sand traditionally used to make rangoli patterns.

This makes this rangoli craft great for younger children.

It’s a mess-free Diwali craft, and every child I know loves using stickers: plus the peeling of the stickers is a great fine-motor skill workout for developing hands.

Start by drawing out a simplified rangoli design on a paper plate or a circle or paper / card.

You can use a pencil if you don’t want your guide lines to show in your finished rangoli, or a marker pen if you want to have bold lines for your children to follow when they are adding their stickers.

Take inspiration from the traditional rangoli designs use of shapes, symmetry, and repeating patterns, but make a simple, clear design your children can use.

You can also use our printable rangoli design templates handout.

Depending on the age / stage of your children, you might like to prepare all these drawings in advance, as templates for your children to use, or leave it to your children to draw their own.

Older children might prefer to have no guidelines and to use the individual shape stickers to build their symmetrical design themselves.

Decorating your rangoli with stickers

Then come the really fun part! Set out your rangoli templates/circles with a selection of colourful, shape stickers.

You can use squares, circles, triangles, stars and hearts and the traditional Indian colours of pink orange, green, yellow and light blue. (Look in the office supplies section of your store to find these kind of stickers.) Try to get a pack with multiple pages so you have lots of the same shape/colour stickers to use in your design.

Peel the stickers off their sheets and add them to your rangoli.

:: You can stick them down, following the drawn lines.

:: You can use them to fill in the blank spaces in your design.

:: To follow the traditional rangoli designs, have all the same coloured stickers in one section of your design, to make blocks of colour like the coloured sand

:: Very young children might simply enjoy placing the brightly coloured stickers onto the circular card / paper plate in a random design.

All of these are valid and creative interpretations of the traditional rangoli designs, so give your children the freedom to make as detailed or as simple a design as they choose.

More Diwali crafts and activities

For more great ideas to learn about and celebrate Diwali with your children, including Rama and Sita puppets, diya crafts, and more rangoli projects, see our full index of Diwali crafts and activities for children.