Symmetry Painting Christmas Baubles (with free template)

Create eye-catching painted Christmas baubles with symmetrical patterns. Complete with free template.

We’re getting into the festive spirit today and making some bright and beautiful painted Christmas baubles.

To make these we used symmetry painting. Basically, we splodged paint on one side of the bauble, folded it in half and squished the paint around to spread it all out.

When you open out the bauble you end up with a very cool symmetrical pattern, with the line of symmetry down your fold line.

These painted baubles make great decorations to go on the wall at Christmas time. You can also take the finished baubles and back them on card stock to make a Christmas card.

Children can enjoy choosing whatever colour combinations they fancy to make their Christmas baubles unique.

Want to see how to make these symmetry painting Christmas baubles? Then here we go!

What you will need:

• Christmas bauble printable (find it at the end of the post)

• scissors

• paint (colours of your choice, plus yellow or gold for the top of the bauble)

• glue stick

• tape

• pipe cleaner

A note about the paint…

In terms of paint, you want to choose paint that is non-toxic, but also not a watery paint. It needs to be viscous enough that is can be spread about the paper when the paper is folded. Watery paint will just run and won’t have the same effect. We used acrylic paint from the craft store.

How to create a symmetry painting Christmas bauble

Step 1

Start by printing off the bauble printable. You can find the printable at the bottom of this post.

Step 2

Cut out both the bauble (circle) and the top of the bauble (the rectangle).

Step 3

Fold the circle in half vertically and then open out.

Step 4

Next, choose you paint colours. I would recommend using two or three colours.

Splodge blobs of paint in different spots on one half of the circle.

Again, just put paint on one half of the circle. Leave the other side blank.

Step 5

Fold the non-painted side of the circle over onto the painted side.

Squish the paper down and do your best to spread the paint about between the two halves of the circle so that as much of the paper is covered with paint as possible.

Some paint may squidge out the edges but this doesn’t matter.

Step 6

Unfold the circle to reveal the symmetrical painted pattern on the circle.

Put the circle to one side to dry.

Step 7

Next paint the small rectangle with yellow or gold paint. This is going to go at the top of the bauble.

Set aside the dry.

Step 8

Once all the painted parts are dry, it’s time to assemble!

Put glue on the bottom half of the yellow rectangle and attach to the back of the top of the bauble.

Step 8

To finish, take a piece of pipe cleaner and cut length of about 10cm. Make a loop and twist at the bottom.

Attach to the back of the bauble with a piece of tape.

And your Christmas bauble is complete!

Once they’ve made one, children can make more, experimenting with different colour combinations and patterns.

Want to use our Christmas bauble template? Here it is:

***This printable is available for you for personal use only. Print off and use at home with your children or with your students in the classroom.***

Want to save this Christmas baubles craft for later? Then why not pin it?

For more Christmas and winter crafts, why not check out:

Or shop our Christmassy craft templates over in our Etsy store: