Handmade spinning tops with everyday materials! Easy ideas you can enjoy for New Year’s too
As New Year’s approaches, you may find yourself wondering what kinds of games to enjoy with the kids.
Here, we introduce ideas for handmade spinning tops that you can easily make using familiar materials found at home.
Using items like bouncy balls, paper plates, plastic bottle caps, and origami paper, you can make them right away without any special preparation.
They’re designed to be easy for small children to spin, and you can have fun decorating them in bright colors, so the excitement lasts from the making process through playtime.
This New Year, why not have both kids and adults try making spinning tops together?
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Make Your Own Spinning Tops with Everyday Materials! Easy Ideas You Can Enjoy at New Year (31–40)
plastic bottle spinning top
Let’s make a New Year’s handmade toy—a plastic bottle spinning top—using items you have at home or can get easily.
Heat and inflate an empty 500 ml plastic bottle in a microwave.
Adjust the size and shape as it expands by watching it in the microwave.
Cut off the bottom with scissors or a utility knife, insert a skewer or toothpick through the hole as the axle, and secure it.
Make two of the same, and decorate them with colored pens or tape.
You can use just one or combine both—either is fine.
Have fun making and playing with this New Year’s toy made from recycled materials.
A spinning top made from a plastic bottle cap
The only materials you need are a plastic bottle cap and a bamboo skewer! Use an awl to make a hole in the center of the cap.
Cut off the pointed tip of the bamboo skewer and trim it to just under 5 cm in length.
Then lightly sand one end so it’s not too sharp.
Next, insert the skewer through the hole you made and secure it at the center with a hot glue gun—done! When inserting the skewer, make sure it goes in straight and perpendicular to the cap without any tilt.
If it’s too long or the tip is too sharp, it won’t spin stably, so be careful.
A big buzzing top
A buzzing top you spin by manipulating strings in the air instead of on the floor or a desk.
It’s usually small enough to fit in your hand, but why not go big with the size! Cut the top part out of cardboard in a circle larger than your face.
After that, just do the same as when making a regular buzzing top: make a hole in the center for the string and thread it through.
Pre-wind the string around a few turns, then pull the strings on both sides to spin the top in the middle.
Unlike the regular size, the larger top takes a bit more strength to spin!
Floating spinning top
How about making a levitating spinning top that could even work for a summer science project? It isn’t that hard to build, yet watching it keep spinning while floating is truly impressive.
To give away the secret, the levitation is achieved with magnets.
It uses the repulsive force of magnets to float.
That may sound simple, but while the top itself is easy to make, the fine-tuning needed to get it to float is quite challenging.
By adjusting factors like the top’s weight and the subtle tilt of the magnets in the base, you can finally get a top that levitates.
shuriken top (spinning top shaped like a ninja throwing star)
Did you know you can make a spinning top out of origami? By adapting the origami shuriken that many of us made at least once as children, you can create a top that spins really well.
Simply put, it’s like fitting a small origami pinwheel into the shuriken.
The small pinwheel is stiff and hard to fold, so it’s easier if you make sharp creases first using a ruler or similar tool.
If you get creative with the colors, you’ll see beautiful hues while it spins, so it’s fun to try making it with different color combinations.
Handmade spinning tops with everyday materials! Easy ideas you can enjoy for New Year’s (41–50)
newspaper spinning top
Let’s try making a spinning top using a newspaper you have at home! Amazingly, with this newspaper top, both the shaft and the body are made entirely from newspaper.
First, for the shaft, roll the newspaper tightly into a thin stick.
The key is to shape the tip of the shaft so it’s slightly pointed.
Next, wrap another long, thin strip of newspaper around the shaft.
Once you finish wrapping, slide the wrapped part slightly to create a small step so it forms the shape of a top—and you’re done! It’s surprisingly easy, so give it a try with a newspaper you have at home.
Spinning top made from a milk carton
Let’s make a big spinning top using a milk carton you have at home! Cut off the bottom and the spout of the carton, open it up, and divide it into four equal sections.
Fold each section in half, arrange the four folded pieces in a tic-tac-toe shape, then pull the ends to form a pinwheel-like shape.
Next, sharpen one end of a chopstick with a craft knife and insert it through the center of the top.
Finally, cut the part you’ll spin to a suitable length, and you’ll have a very stable spinning top.
If you add colors or patterns, it looks beautiful when it spins! When pushing the chopstick through, be sure to check that your hand isn’t on the other side before you do it.