Contributed by Tim Brugger, Catalogs.com Top 10 Guru

If you or your children are the craftsy sort, you know paper is the home artisan’s best friend.

There are endless projects, some better than others of course, you can tackle using paper, a bit of glue, a couple of outlines and a lot of imagination.

To help narrow the choices, here are my top ten paper craft ideas.

10. Moustache Party Straw

Unless you have an extremely lax office environment, this one may be best left for the kids in the house. Like a lot of paper crafts ideas, this one doesn’t take an origami master to complete. Cut out the moustache shape of your choice (a retro looking handlebar works great), trace the outline on the goofiest craft paper you can lay your hands on, and cut. A little dab of glue and you have yourself a party straw.

9. Birthday Card Organizer

For the slightly more advanced paper artiste, this project makes great use of the old, beat up ring binder everyone seems to have tucked away somewhere. This one entails creating a little pocket for each of the 12 months, jotting down the names of corresponding Birthdays of friends and family and sliding in the B-day goodies you’ll need when the time comes. Things like stamps, cards (once you’ve created them) and assorted other Holiday materials will make sure no one gets overlooked. Oh, and don’t forget the lace on the spine to cover the old rings.

8. Angel Tree Topper

It’s a little frightening to consider, but the Holiday season isn’t that far away. Sure, you can go out and buy the snazzy crystal X-mas tree angel, but the Holidays are about family. When it comes to paper crafts ideas, bringing everyone together to make the family tree topper has got to be on our list. Don’t forget to coat the paper with a mix of white and black paint, or something similar, to make it a bit more durable when it comes time for the unveiling.

7. Soda Can Notepad

For creativity alone this is one of the paper crafts ideas that simply had to be included. After flattening and the pounding down a used soda can, cut around the edges of the can using some wire cutters, but make it a bit bigger than the notepad so you can hem the sharp edges. It’s attached using the existing wire that binds the original notepad. It works like this – take a hammer and nail and make several holes in the can, the original wire is then used to attach the can to the pad; taking the art of recycling to a whole new level.

6. Envelope

This is the perfect addition with many of our other Top 10 projects. Taking an existing envelope of whatever size and shape fits your needs; you ever so slowly peel back the envelope’s glued edges to open it all the way up. If there’s a small tear or two that’s not a problem, it’s easily remedied. Now it’s just a matter of gluing the patterns of your choice on the front and back, and use the folds from the original envelope and a ruler to re-attach all the sides.

5. Baby Shower Faux Cake

As beautiful as this paper project looks it’s one of the easiest, though a bit time consuming, paper crafts ideas on our list. The trick is measuring and cutting the pink paper to fit the three paper mache boxes. Getting that perfectly sized makes gluing the subsequent decorating easy as pie (I resisted the urge to say “a piece of cake” because of it’s obvious triteness). After that it’s just a matter of attaching the ribbon and assorted baby-like embellishments.

4. Gift Pockets

Paper crafts ideas that are easy as pie, but look like they’ve taken hours to complete; now that’s my kind of project. This little beauty is perfect for tossing a special prize into your child’s lunch box or for use when giving a little gift to a friend or family member. All it takes is a paper bag, some stamps and maybe even a marker or two depending on your design preferences. One tip worth noting; roll up some newspaper (you’ll find some extra in Top 10 list item #3 below) and slide it inside the bag before you commence stamping. This way the ink doesn’t pass through to the other side too.

3. Newspaper Bin

Keeping with the earlier recycling theme, check out this newspaper bin made from newspapers; I’m pretty sure there’s some irony in there someplace but I just can’t put my finger on it. Anyway, the 16 rolls you see jutting up from the bottom form the frame, and are nothing more than ½ page newspapers rolled tight and then glued. Then it’s just a matter of folding down full page papers to about 2 inches thick and weaving them in and out of the frame. Finally, something productive coming from the news media!

2. Cupcake Card

We’d be remiss to not include at least one card project in a Top 10 List of Paper Crafts Ideas, and no one wants to be remiss. This one starts with some dark, chocolate chip colored cardstock as the base, paste on a bit of ribbon or lace for some background style and then start doctoring up the creative cupcake design. What’s nice about this one is the Happy Birthday message could just as easily be Get Well, Mozel Tov or To a Great Dad (my personal favorite).

1. Wine Gift Box

I love this one! For the wine connoisseur in the family, blow ‘em away with this homemade paper crafts idea. You’ll need an old postal tube to start, and then some antique style paper and a few wine stickers. If you can’t find stickers, you can use the labels from old wine bottles; cutting and pasting the bits you want. And don’t forget the coup de grace, a “You Get Better With Age” card; tie it on using some old twine or hemp to complete the retro look.