DIY Ideas For Repurposing Your Confetti

For party décor enthusiasts, the question of what to do with leftover confetti when a special event is over can be quite the conundrum. After all, if you’ve made an effort to obtain high-quality, vibrantly-colored confetti, then it seems like an awful waste to let the stuff gather dust in a storage closet. Fortunately, confetti actually lends itself well to various craft projects. With a little creativity, you can very easily re-purpose your confetti to make something truly unique! Here are four fun, relatively simple crafts with confetti that you can pull off at home:

CONFETTI BALLOONS

Back in March of 2020, we explained how to make confetti balloons—both the decorative kind and the surprise-reveal kind. If you’ve never made a confetti balloon before, using leftovers from a previous event are a great way to learn. That way, there’s no pressure to make it look perfect, nor are there any time constraints! So practice making see-through balloons full of gorgeous confetti to decorate for an upcoming birthday party, or experiment with opaque balloons that will explode in a burst of color the next time you host a gender reveal! Best of all: tissue paper confetti is biodegradable. If you do wind up going the surprise-reveal route, while you SHOULD be certain to pick up balloon pieces and excess piles of confetti you can find, any small paper shreds left behind won’t harm native plants or animals.

SPOOKY CONFETTI SPIDER WEBS AND SENSATIONAL CONFETTI SNOWFLAKES

This project is ideal for very small pieces of confetti or metallic glitter; if all you have are bigger pieces of confetti, you might have to further shred them by hand. With that said, at its core, this project is simple enough that even young children can have fun with it! Once you’ve got your confetti ready, the only other supplies you’ll need are construction paper (black is great, but any color will do) and liquid “school” glue.

Using the glue, draw a fun design on the paper—snowflakes for Christmas and winter holidays, spider webs for Halloween, or anything else your brain comes up with. Be sure to use enough glue to make a thick, definite line, but not so much that you wind up with a puddle! When you’re satisfied with your design, carefully sprinkle the glitter or confetti all over the paper. The end result will, at first, just look like a piece of construction paper with confetti piled on top of it. But after the glue dries completely (wait overnight for best results), tilt the paper and shake it gently. Any shreds not stuck to the glue lines you made earlier will fall off, revealing your design in the glitter or confetti!

CONFETTI COLLAGE

This one is similar to the aforementioned Spider Webs / Snowflakes craft, but it actually works best with larger pieces of confetti and glue sticks. It also may be a better choice for older kids who want a bit more of a challenge when it comes to their DIY confetti projects. Once again, all you need is leftover confetti, glue, and a piece of construction paper.

To complete the project, stick individual pieces of confetti onto the paper in order to “assemble” pictures. You can craft something as simple as flowers, trees, and hearts, or really go all-in and cover the paper in letters, stylized portraits, or full-blown landscapes. The only limits are your imagination and your attention span! Please note that we specifically recommend using glue sticks instead of liquid glue for collages, as stick glue will coat the confetti or the construction paper more smoothly and evenly, and it will dry faster, too. It’s worth mentioning that this collage technique can be used to make one-of-a-kind greeting cards that will delight the recipient, regardless of the occasion!

CONFETTI SOAP

Hand-crafted mini soaps make for cute party favors, and, if your leftover confetti happens to be a holiday shade (e.g., blue and white for Hanukah; red and pink for Valentine’s Day), they can serve as festive holiday gifts, as well! To make confetti soap, you’ll need melt-and-pour soap (clear, not opaque), some kind of craft mold (silicone is great, and so is hard plastic specifically labeled for soap-making), a glass measuring cup or other microwave-safe vessel, and a heat-resistant stirring utensil (like a wooden chopstick). You may also add soap fragrance and/or color, which can readily be obtained from your local art supply store—just make absolutely sure you get the body-safe kind designed for soap, NOT the kind meant for candle-making or other craft projects!

To create the confetti soap, melt your desired quantity of melt-and-pour soap in the microwave according to the package directions (standard procedure is generally 20-30 seconds to start out, then 10-second intervals as needed)—you’ll probably have to stir it between “nuking” sessions in order for the stuff to melt evenly. When the soap has been liquefied, you can add any colorants or fragrances you’d like; be sure to mix well so that these add-ins are fully integrated. Then, pour the liquid soap mixture into your molds, toss in a few pinches of confetti, and stir inside the mold until you’re satisfied with how it looks. After that, give the confetti soap a couple hours to cool to room temperature, and then pop it out of the molds. Voilà! Cleaning Time is now Confetti Time!

Important note: PLEASE only craft confetti soap using biodegradable confetti made from tissue paper! Metallic confetti and metallic glitter are typically made of plastic, and flushing tiny pieces of plastic down the drain is bad for the environment. Non-biodegradable confetti can also accumulate inside pipes and create clogs. Additionally, keep in mind that melted soap (and a thoroughly microwaved glass or plastic vessel) can be very hot, so children should definitely have adult supervision when attempting this confetti project!