Popsicle Stick Art and Craft Ideas: We Gotta Stick Together

Are you looking for some really cool popsicle stick art and craft ideas to get the curative juices flowing? In this post I want to share some of my favorite craft stick sculptures with everyone. Popsicle sticks are highly versatile and easy to get ahold of, you could save them from your own ice cream indulgence to reuse, or buy clean new ones….and once you’ve got enough you can turn them into something amazing!

All it takes is enough of these sticks and one good idea. I realize the idea part may be the hardest, so that’s why I want to provide a little inspiration so you can get started.  But once you hit the ground running you could make dollhouse furniture, knickknacks, art, and so much more! So save those sticks if you’re an ice cream lover….and let’s dive in now!

Pin for Later?

That’s the kind of enjoyment I want you to experience too!

Hey, budding crafters, you’re gonna need some sticks to get started ! If you eat ice cream regularly and save the stick when you’re done,that’s cool, but it could take a long time to accumulate enough for one of these projects!

(Plus the sweet confections often leave stained sticks behind…😁)

Why Make Art From Popsicle Sticks?

And why popsicle sticks anyway? The question is why not? They are inexpensive, especially in bulk amounts, you don’t need to cut, sand, or drill into them, you can paint them if you want to (or just get the pre-colored version, better yet) If you think about it, there’s no reason at all why you couldn’t produce craft stick art projects that would rival balsa wood any day.

To create artwork you don’t need to create an armature because the sticks themselves have a certain amount of stability on their own. You will need a few additional tools -some good glue for one thing, namely hot glue or waterproof solvent like e6000, some paints, or markers and that’s pretty much it.

Oh, and yes, your imagination, don’t forget that part 🙂

Anyway, here are my favorite popsicle stick craft ideas to look into; some are more elaborate than others but they are all unique!.

Here’s an example of a project I did – This is a spiral decoration I did entirely out of popsicle sticks, all of which I collected. I later on washed them and painted them, and glued them together strategically to create this shape.  I personally dig elaborate designs like this.

Freestanding sculpture

Think you can’t make a three dimensional work of art out of craft sticks? Think again! It might take time but I bet it’d be worth it – look at this picture of what is actually an ice cream cone sculpture ; isn’t that really dope??

Upon a closeup look it appears that she (the artist below) may have broken some sticks in half for the ice cream part – can you tell?

Usually linear objects are easier to construct since sticks are straight (duh!) but you look at an ice cream cone in real life and it’s anything but – so it pays to explore all the possibilities 🙂

Make labels for your plants

Have trouble keeping track of what you planted? Let’s get them tagged! Craft sticks are the ideal substrate for plant markers...You can write the name of the crop on them sideways, or vertically…or if it’s more your style, have the names printed out another way.

Build craft stick scale models

Obviously cool things like scale replicas of houses, famous landmarks, and boats would be a great idea too; look at this model ship replica here; the sails look to be made of cloth but the base part looks impressive.

Some ideas to get started would be to create stick versions of familiar objects, or landmarks – I saw one that resembled the Eiffel Tower earlier; you could make the base out of wood so your project has a place to stand proudly.

Make dollhouse furniture

Building a house out of these babies? Don’t stop there you’re going to want to make some furniture to go in there too. Things that are already angular, like beds, park benches, dressers – well most furniture is linear anyway – make some out of craft sticks too!

Make craft stick abstract wall art

You could arrange them in patterns, geometric or otherwise, or heck even group them together in a cluster. Don’t forget you can paint them, or color them in with markers and draw on them too! Or perhaps write inspiring or heartfelt messages on them?

I had a few left to spare, I did exactly that.. They stop me in my tracks whenever I find them, and remind me to think on the “bright side”.

You could put a magnet on the back to stick them on the fridge just attach to each end on the back a magnet strip (there’s a kind you can cut to size easily for all your diy projects.

Or you could use these as bookmarks. Tip: Pierce the top with a pushpin and you can thread a little decorative thread through, attach a bead to it, and you’ve got a nifty little place to mark your place in your favorite novels…

Make a small painting using a single row of sticks

This one seems pretty popular. It’s so easy too – You may need to have two sticks going vertically for support. Add about six or seven craft sticks in a single row over these. When it cures up, you can paint it any way you want. I think this would make a great gift too!

Alternately, if you prefer, you don’t have to glue together your sticks for this one, you can create a puzzle instead and paint/color your design so that each piece is free and loose and makes up pieces of a puzzle.

Like this example here…

I wonder how easy or difficult it is to paint all these sticks grouped together without anything holding them down though? Never tried this, but it would be a great idea if you can rig up a way to keep the pieces still temporarily while you work on it.

Make a birdhouse for your feathered friends

And let’s not forget about your avian visitors….this is a great way to treat them to a nice little mini sanctuary of their own.  You could always start with a base and use the sticks to embellish it as you may need a lot of sticks to get a good size and shape, and it may be time consuming. I did this using a wooden tissue box and it worked out well. Here’s one made with that in mind (I think they used a heavy foam board for the sides and a plastic tray for the bottom)

Image credit: Image by nishakaralkar

Let’s Stick Together!

You can make stuff from popsicle sticks as elaborate as you want, the sky is certainly the limit, it just means you may have to plan on getting more of them – fortunately bulk sizing runs in quantities from 100 to 1000 so you’ll be well covered.

There’s a bigger size too -they kind of resemble tongue depressors in the “open up and say ahh!” variety 🙂 They would give more room to write on. Of course you can combine both sizes together too!

The only “catch” is possibly running out of them in the middle of a project so it pays to “guesstimate” how many you’ll need on the generous side a little.

But once you get started you won’t want to stop.

Creative Commons Photo Attributions: Image Credits: Rasmus Lerdorf

Beatrice Bomb

Kris Kerzman

Selena N. B. H.

That Other Paper