DIY Kindercone

By General Crafts Contributor Michelle

Make a Back to School Kindercone filled with gifts to send your child off!

A Kindercone, Schultüte (school cone) is a German/Austrian tradition in which grade school children are presented with a large, decorated cone filled with treats on the first day of school to celebrate the start of another school year. Since the late 1800’s, and still up to today, German parents and grandparents have traditionally presented a first grader with a Schultüte to honor the first day of “real school.” The cones are filled with treats and school supplies to “sweeten” the first day of school. Why not extend this fun practice to scholars of all ages, and help make back to school a fun celebration?

Kinder 2

Here’s what you’ll need to make your own:

  • Poster board.
  • Piece of string and a pencil.
  • Scissors.
  • Hot glue gun and glue sticks.
  • White school glue.
  • Wrapping paper, stickers, paint, glitter, etc., to decorate your cone.
  • Crepe Paper Folds by Cindus 20 in. x 7 1/2 ft., various colors.
  • Tissue paper.
  • Ribbon.
  • Small gifts and school supplies to fill your cone.

Kinder 3

To begin, tie a pencil to a piece of string. Push the string so it right at the bottom of the pencil, near the sharpened part. Hold the tip of the pencil at one corner of the shortest side of your poster board, and measure a length of string the same length as the shortest side of your poster board. Cut the string. Now you should have a piece of string the same length as the shortest side of your poster board, with a pencil tied to one end.

Working on the shortest side of the poster board, hold the end of the string without the pencil on the corner nearest you. Pull the string taught, and draw an arc from the top corner of the shortest side, down to the long edge of the poster board. You should now have a quarter circle drawn on your poster board.

Kinder 4

If you are going to cover your cone with wrapping paper, like I did, now is the time to wrap it. I used a paintbrush to apply a thin layer of white glue to the poster board, and then smoothed a piece of wrapping paper over the top. I then trimmed the edges, and folded them around the back. Let dry.

Kinder 5

Coil the poster board into a cone shape, bringing the straight edges together. Use hot glue to adhere the cone together.

Kinder 6

To make ruffles to decorate the edge, cut strips of crepe paper, and scrunch them up into ruffles, then hot glue the scrunched bit to the edge of the cone. Continue ruffling the crepe paper, gluing the bunch of ruffles, ruffling some more, and gluing again, until you make your way clear around the edge of the cone. Add as many layers of ruffles as you desire.

Kinder 7

Another way to add decoration is to cut a strip of crepe paper, and then cut fringe into the strip.

Kinder 8

Hot glue the fringe around the cone, using more than one layer of fringe looks the best. Then fluff up the fringe when you’re done gluing it.

Kinder 9

After you’ve decorated your cone, you need to add the tissue paper that will hold all of the goodies inside. To to this, take a full-sized sheet of tissue paper, and along one edge bunch it up a bit.

Kinder 10

Use hot glue to adhere the bunched up edge of the tissue paper along the INSIDE edge of the cone.

Kinder 11

Keep adding sheets of tissue paper, overlapping each sheet by a few inches, until you’ve made it all around the inside of your cone.

Kinder 12

Fill your cone with your treats and school supplies. Pull the tissue paper up over the treats, bunch it together at the top, and tie with a ribbon.

Back to School Kindercone

Present your kindercone to your scholar on the first day of school, and celebrate back-to-school in a special way!

Happy crafting!

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