Printable 3D Animal Crafts for Kids

These free printable 3D animal crafts give kids 8 adorable animals to color, cut out, and put together.

But these aren’t ordinary flat paper crafts. Kids use small folded paper supports to make different parts of each animal pop off the page, giving their finished artwork a fun 3D look.

It’s a creative project for kids who love animals, coloring, cutting, and making things. And since everything they need is included in the printable, it’s an easy craft to pull out when you need an activity without a lot of preparation.

Free printable 3D animal crafts for kids to color, cut, and assemble

8 Printable Animal Crafts

The printable includes 8 different 3D animal crafts:

owl
monkey
dog
butterfly
budgie
chameleon
lion
giraffe

Each animal is made from several individual pieces filled with different doodle patterns. Kids can choose their own colors for every section, so even when two children make the same animal, their finished crafts can look completely different.

Some of the animals take more than one page to complete, while others fit on a single page. There are also leaves and branches that can be added to some of the finished pictures.

How Do the 3D Animal Crafts Work?

Kids color and cut out the animal pieces, then use folded paper supports to raise individual pieces from the background.

The printable includes a page of rectangular supports. Cut the supports into individual strips and fold along the dotted lines to create small square shapes.

Glue one side of a folded support to the back of an animal piece and the other side to the animal’s body. Instead of lying completely flat, that piece will now sit slightly above the page.

Repeat with the remaining pieces to build up the animal and create the 3D effect.

What You’ll Need

You only need a few basic craft supplies:

printed animal craft pages
crayons, colored pencils, or markers
scissors
glue
white cardstock or paper

Cardstock will make the finished craft sturdier, especially with the raised 3D pieces.

A Coloring and Cutting Craft for Kids

There’s quite a bit for kids to do before these animals are finished.

The detailed doodle patterns give kids lots of little sections to color. They can follow a color scheme, try to make their animal somewhat realistic, or forget realism altogether and make a rainbow-colored lion or brightly patterned giraffe.

Then comes the cutting and assembling.

With large shapes as well as smaller pieces like eyes, feet, ears, and other details, this printable craft also gives kids plenty of practice using scissors.

Because there are several steps involved, it’s a nice project when you’re looking for something that will keep kids happily creating for longer than a quick coloring page.

Who Are These Printable Animal Crafts For?

These 3D animal crafts are best for elementary-aged kids who are comfortable using scissors and can manage some folding and gluing.

Younger children can still make the animals with help from an adult, especially with cutting smaller pieces and assembling the paper supports.

Older kids can work more independently and spend extra time adding color and detail to all the doodle patterns.

Download and Print

The free printable 3D animal crafts PDF has 16 pages, including the animal pieces, paper supports, and a guide showing what the completed animals look like.

To get the printable, fill out one of the forms on this page. The PDF will be emailed to you.

Print the animal pages your child would like to make along with the support page. Since the crafts are designed for kids to add their own colors, the pages can be printed in black and white.

You can download the crafts using the form below: