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How to make a paper basketball


How To Make A Paper Basketball? 13 Easy Steps To Make

Right now, Basketball is one of the most popular sports going around in the world. All you need are two things- a ball and a hoop to start with.

Kids love to play basketball. Because this is fun. This is exciting. There is never a dull moment in this game. Children love doing exercises, especially when it is hidden in a competitive and thrilling sport like basketball. Hence playing with the best portable basketball hoop shall create more enthusiasm.

They show tremendous hand eye co-ordination, fine motor skills, improved flexibility and endurance. As a young kid, whenever there is a scope to have the ball in their hand, they hardly let it go.

Table of Contents

  • materials you’ll need to make a paper basketball
  • 13 Step By Step Paper Basketball Making Process
  • Pro Tips

But what if your mom says you can’t play with the ball inside the house? Because it can get really noisy out there. In addition to this, there is a greater possibility that you may break things or shatter your windows.

That is exactly the reason why most often parents don’t allow their children to play inside the house. Besides, not all the kids may have the capability to own a basketball.

So, what should they do now? Should they give up playing the game that they adore most?

No, they don’t need to. Instead, they can try to make something out of the local materials. In this situation, paper basketball is the way to go. With paper basketball in your hand, now you can easily play inside your house. But how to make a paper basketball?

To make various shapes, Paper is a sensational medium to have at your disposal. Can you tell me what is most amazing about things made of paper? Paper is really a low-cost material. It is extremely easy to manufacture.

These paper basketballs do begin with a simple circle. In fact, this is so simple to make that you can decorate and craft it all by yourself. The overall process is easy to understand and absolutely safe for the children as well. Make it colorful according to your liking. Kids will have tons of fun with their friends.

So, why not try making a paper basketball to show the love and passion you have for the sport? Let me give you some instructions on how to make a paper basketball.

materials you’ll need to make a paper basketball

  • Newspaper or paper (amount certainly depends on the size of the ball that you want for your kids)
  • Any type of scotch tape
  • Color paper (orange)
  • Scissor
  • Compass
  • Pencil
  • Ruler
  • Ruler
  • Black permanent marker

13 Step By Step Paper Basketball Making Process

Yeah, there are several ways by which you can make paper basketball. But we always try to help our readers with the best information possible.

This is why we have enlisted the easiest way for you to make a paper basketball. With that now, you can easily make a paper basketball by purely following these instructions.

Step 1: Collect some old magazine or newspaper. Any type of discarded paper will also do.

Step 2: Now you take a sheet of paper on your hands and fold it to form a round shape as the basketball.

Step 3: Then crumple the paper into a circle and you need to create a basic paper ball shape.

Step 4: You should wrap the other paper onto your crumpled paper.

Step 5: Repeat the same process to another piece of paper. It will now get bigger and bigger.

Step 6: Continue crumpling until you think this size will be OK for you.

Step 7: Hold the grip tightly with your hands.

Step 8: Now, you need to work with your drawing compass. When you’re adjusting your compass keep in mind that the span between the tip and pencil is kept half as wide as you prefer your basketball to be.

After that you need to place the point of the compass at the center of your color paper. Keep holding it in place with the small shaft at the top of compass. Spin the compass carefully and use pencil to draw the perfect circle onto the paper.

Step 9: Utilize a scissor to cut the circle out from the paper.

Step 10: How do you draw a basketball? Now it is time to bring a real basketball image on the circle paper. Draw two lines on the circle paper. One vertical and other is horizontal. The vertical line should be going across the center of the orange circle, and the horizontal line must be across the center of the vertical line.

Make it look like a black plus sign by using a ruler and black permanent marker. You should also draw two semi circles at either side of the horizontal line.

Step 11: Nicely place the orange paper onto the crumbling ball now.

Step 12: Bring the tape and wrap it around your paper shaped ball.

Step 13: This is not any instruction really. Yeah, finally you’re ready to play!

Now you see, how simple it is to make a ball out of paper? Challenge your friends and see who can score more points. Surely your mom won’t be screaming at you now. Cheers!

Pro Tips

Tips 1. When you design the ball, it will be much easier to paint for you if you have a basketball or an image of basketball on your hand. Besides, you can also choose any other design over the ball.

Tips 2. If you want, you’re free to fill the whole paper shaped ball with the tape.

Related articles you may like:

Design Your Kids An Over-The-Door Basketball Net For Year-Round Hoops | Play

It's basketball season, which means it's time to swish up a kid's bedroom with my over-the-door basketball hoop.

The knotting may seem difficult, but I promise you it's worth the effort. And although this craft uses a wire hanger, I have a feeling that even Joan Crawford would have loved to practice her half-court threes on this adorable game for kids. 

Let's get started!

What You'll Need

  • cardboard
  • paper or bristol board
  • clothes hanger
  • pipecleaners
  • string
  • masking tape
  • colourful tape
  • scissors
  • glue
  • ruler

How It's Made

To make a sturdy base for your backboard, cut a rectangle of cardboard. The one I've cut here (see above) is about 25 cm tall and 40 cm wide — just slightly wider than the hanger.

Next, use tape to attach your hanger to the cardboard. Roll lengths of tape around the wire to get a sturdy hold on the hanger, then press the tape down on the cardboard. Allow the extra length of tape to wrap up and over the top edge of the cardboard and onto the other side to hold everything in place.

Flip the cardboard to the “front side.” (The side without the hanger.) Cut a rectangle of bristol board to the same size as your cardboard and use glue to attach it. If you don’t have bristol board, using a few sheets of smaller paper to cover your cardboard will work just as well!

Now have fun decorating your backboard! I opted to make a standard backboard in red and white, but you can get as creative as you like. Choose your favourite team colours, decorate with logos or add your own original artwork. To make the lines on our backboard, I used a roll of red electrical tape I had on hand, but you can make your lines and decorations in many ways: with paint, markers or cut paper. Have your little ones help design it — use prompts like, "who is your favourite athlete or team?" And if they aren't able to recall any sports teams or athletes, you can ask them about their favourite things and incorporate those themes into the backboard!

Here’s my finished backboard, complete with a rectangle for bank shots and trimmed around the border.

Now it’s time to make the rim for your basketball net. Twist two pipe cleaners together to give yourself a longer length of pipe cleaner to work with (shown at the top of the photo). Bring the ends of your pipe cleaner together to make a loop. Twist the ends to close your circle, but leave an extra 5 or 6 cm of pipe cleaner sticking out (shown at the bottom of the photo). You’ll use the extra sticky-outy pieces to secure your rim to your backboard later.

Next, the net! Cut several lengths of string. My string is about the length of a ruler. Tie a string at the north, south, east and west positions of your rim. A double-knot will keep your strings nice and secure.

Use a bit of judgment to decide how many more strings to tie on. This rim looked good with three additional strings tied in each of the four quadrants for a total of 16 strings. You can tie on more or less, as long as you tie on an even number of strings. For the next steps, you’ll be tying strings in pairs. An odd number of strings will leave you with one string that doesn't have a partner. Note: Before moving on to the next step, trim the loose ends of the double-knots you tied around the rim to make it look nice and tidy.

Now it’s time to start knotting your net. Start anywhere you like along the rim. Find two neighbouring strings. Gather both strands together and tie them into a single knot about 3 cm down from the rim. Move to the next pair of strings, tie them in a knot and so on. This is a task for adult hands, or kids who have the dexterity to tie many knots. 

Here is a “flattened” demonstration of a first row of knots. Keep pairing and knotting strings until you arrive at the first knot you tied. That’s one row complete!

Create a second row of knots a few centimeters down from your first row — but this time, create new pairs. Take one string from one pair and one string from the pair next door. Tie a knot. Create another new pair, until just like your first knots, you arrive back to where you started.

When it’s time to create your third row, you’ll do the same. The third row is in essence reuniting the original pairs from your first row. You can see in the illustration above how the rows of knots and string pairings will start to create the signature diamond pattern of a basketball net as they move together and apart, together and apart.

If during the knotting process you get mixed up or lose your place, hold the rim horizontally at eye-level and give it a gentle shake. The strings will fall downward and sort themselves out. This will make it easier to find your next pair of strings to knot. The net is pretty forgiving. It doesn’t need to be done perfectly or be mistake-free to look like a very convincing basketball net!

Create as many rows of knots as you think suit the size of your rim and backboard. This net has five rows of knots. Once you’re done tying, trim the loose ends at the bottom of the net with a pair of scissors to make it look even and tidy.

Now it’s time to attach the rim! Poke a hole through your backboard.

Feed the loose ends of your pipe cleaner net through to the back side of your cardboard and use tape to secure them. Take a peek at the front side of your backboard. If your rim is drooping or tilting downward, pull the pipe cleaner ends tighter/through to the back side more and tape them down again.

If you’d like to use your backboard over a door knob or a closet handle, it’s ready to go as is. If you want to use it over the back of a door, you’ll want to change the orientation of the hook. Carefully and gently twist the top of the hanger a quarter-turn so the hook curls backward and away from the front of the backboard.
Important: The coat hanger has the potential to scuff and scratch surfaces. It’s a good idea to wind masking tape around the hook of the hanger, or to place something soft and protective underneath it like a washcloth before you play. I added another piece of cardboard onto the back of my backboard to sandwich the hanger inside as an extra layer of protection.

Now it’s time to play! Hang up your net, ball up some scrap paper and take your best shot. Log some hours practicing your free throws, three-pointers and baseline jumpers. Or, set up a family March Madness tournament of your own! Draw up a tourney bracket, seed all of the competitors … and watch out for those mid-major upsets!

How to make a paper ball?

Probably, there is not a single person in the world who did not have a ball in childhood. There are a huge number of games based on the use of this sport attribute: basketball, baseball, volleyball, tennis and, of course, football. What do sports balls and origami have in common? It turns out that there is a special technique for making a sports ball out of paper. Of course, you won’t be able to play it, but an original gift is definitely guaranteed. Let's see how to make a paper ball?

What do you need?

Footballs are made from modules of various shapes. Their size and quantity will depend on what volume you need. The most popular balls are 8, 18 or 32 modules.

Consider the option of making a sports gift from 32 panels. You need to make blanks of 12 pentagonal modules and 20 hexagonal ones. The main thing is that all their sides are the same. In order to maintain the traditional colors of a soccer ball as a result, it is better to make pentagons from black paper, and hexagons from white. You can go the other way: stick colored self-adhesive paper on the pentagons.

How to make a paper ball using modules?

To begin with, all the pentagonal and hexagonal modules must be carefully folded into the stencil. To do this, we make a hexagonal module smaller than our blanks. In each of the 20 hexagons in the center we place our stencil and bend all the edges of the model inward, take out the base and again iron all the folds at an angle of 90 degrees. When creating pentagonal modules, we will use the same hexagonal template. To do this, all the edges of the model will also need to be bent inward, but we will apply the stencil from the outside so that all sides of all 32 modules are the same as a result. All edges are carefully ironed along the folds, turning at an angle of 90 degrees.

How to assemble a soccer ball?

The rules for assembling the ball are very simple. Each pentagon must be connected to five hexagons, with each hexagon bordering three hexagons, and the pentagon must not border any pentagon. We start the assembly by attaching one pentagon to the hexagon, gluing the remaining hexagonal modules in turn around our base. Gradually, our workpiece begins to bend, taking the shape of a ball. Next add 5 pentagons and 5 hexagons. Thus, it turns out that half of the structure is assembled. To understand how to make a whole paper ball, you need to be very careful. Now we take 5 hexagons, and then 5 pentagons. Then it remains to glue the remaining hexagons, and at the end the last pentagon. Carefully insert the last module into the hole. We leave the ball to dry for a day. A beautiful and unusual gift is ready.

So, knowing how to make a paper ball, you can solve the problem of choosing a gift, for example, for a man on February 23rd. The original soccer ball will be an excellent interior decoration and will remind you of you.

Paper ball | Do it yourself

Despite the large number of modules, this voluminous ball is not difficult to assemble. The main thing is to be patient and do everything strictly according to the scheme. Paper for crafts must be taken thick, then the ball will keep its shape well. To make this ball, you will need 5 square sheets of white paper and 2 square sheets of colored paper. A square can be made from landscape paper. For crafts, you will need 20 white modules and 12 modules of any other color. First prepare the white modules. Each module is an equilateral hexagon with three mounts. To make the hexagon blanks, take all the white squares and fold them in half. Cut along the fold. You will have 10 rectangles.

Take a rectangle.

Fold it in half lengthwise.

Expand. Bend the right side so that the bottom corner coincides with the central fold (where the mark is).

Bend the left side of the rectangle, making a corner at the bottom, aligning its lower part with the fold.

Turn the workpiece over to the other side.

Bend the left part of the craft to the right along the edge of the triangle (where the pointer is), which turned out on the workpiece.

That's it.

Unfold the leaflet. In the middle of it should be two triangles.

Cut along the folds. You will not need the edges of the sheet, and put the triangles aside. In the same way, cut out triangles from the remaining squares. You will get 20 triangles.

Take one triangle.

Fold it in half along the fold.

Fold the top moving part in half.

Turn the workpiece to the left by 90°. Fold the top corner along the dotted line.


Fold the top in half.

Turn the craft to the left again by 90° and fold down along the dotted line.

Fold the folded part in half.

There is a pocket in the middle of the blank. Hide the lid of the triangle inside.


Bend the corners of the triangle towards the center. These are module mounts.


Turn over the module. You have a hexagon.

Make the rest of the hex modules.

Take a square sheet of colored paper.

Fold in half.

Divide into three equal portions.

Cut. Do the same with the other square sheet. You will have 12 rectangles.

Take one rectangle.

Fold in half.

Turn so that the fold is on top. Fold the top piece in half along the dotted line.


Bend the protruding part of the sheet downwards so that both folds coincide.

Fold down the right side of the dotted line. Then both folds will be equal here.

Lower the upper single triangle (like a page) down.

On the left you will see the protruding lower part of the workpiece.

Fold it down, making sure the edges are even.

Turn the blank over to the other side so that there are two unconnected leaves on top. Bend the top leaf down, aligning the corners.

Turn 180°. Fold the top sheet in half.

Unfold and fold it again on the other side.

Unfold the folded piece of paper again and hide its upper edge in the pocket.


The edges of the folds are marked on the craft. Connect the right corner of the rhombus to the left label. Iron the fold.


Unfold. Now connect the left corner of the rhombus with the right mark and iron the fold too.

You have such a figure with outlined lines. Now you have to hide the bottom corner inside the pocket. You will get a triangle.


Connect the right corner to the mark. Bend the left corner down to the fold.

Turn over to the other side. You should end up with a pentagon. Make the rest of the modules.


Start assembling like a mosaic by sticking the white module into the colored one. The color module, in this case blue, should be in the center.


Around the blue module should be placed 5 white, fastened together. Only the first and fifth modules will not be connected. They must be fastened with the blue module.


Place it so that the top of the pentagon faces the connector and its wings face the sides. This is a prerequisite, otherwise the assembly process will fail and you will not be able to assemble the ball. Then you act according to the same principle: fasten 5 white modules around the blue one, and fasten the first and fifth white modules in blue.


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