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Collages are an excellent way to fill a wet afternoon and use up the odds and ends in your craft box. The only limit when making a collage is your imagination - and hopefully some of the inspiration below will get you started! You don't need anything special as children will be very happy making collages with the simplest of materials, and magazines and catalogues are always a good start!
Sarah shares some new collage ideas using Activity Village printables
Collage with a mixed age group of children
This 70 collage craft is a simple idea but it is perfect to get all ages of children involved and excited about the Queen's Platinum Jubilee 2022. If having a go at home, perhaps older siblings can help younger siblings cut out the numbers.
Quick to make but great fun for younger children, this apple collage makes a super autumn or healthy eating craft. Make sure to protect your area and your child, because things might get a bit sticky!
The Australian continent map collage was a project done by my daughter when she was at nursery school age. She loved everything about it and always instantly recognised the map of Australia afterwards...
Here's an excuse to go outside and collect some autumn leaves! Even the youngest children can make a pretty autumn collage that you will be proud to display...
Scrunching tissue paper and sticking it always appeals to little kids, and you get a lovely textural result to put on display. It's possibly not so easy to see the shape of our autumn leaf in this picture, but the colours are lovely!
Make a spectacular display to celebrate the arrival of autumn with this autumn tree craft. This obviously works well as a group or class project.
This is such a quick and easy balloon elephant craft - simply involving some cutting and sticking! But the finished picture with the "3D" balloon trunk is very effective and we think the kids will enjoy making it.
This delightful birds nest collage can be enjoyed by all ages. Younger children can be given the shapes pre-cut and can take charge of decorating the paper plate nest and and adding wiggle eyes and beaks to the baby birds.
These blossom tree collage pictures are so pretty to display for Spring, Chinese New Year or perhaps a Japan theme. And they are quick and easy to make, too!
Celebrate Bonfire Night or other "bonfire" occasions such as Fourth of July or Nowruz with this wonderful collage bonfire collage.
Oranges or tangerines are often taken to other families as gifts and displayed at Chinese New Year, as their Chinese names sound like the words for "gold" and "wealth". We used some colourful papers to create this stunning bowl of oranges collage.
Here's a fun, hands-on way to learn about and remember the Chinese Flag. Using a collage technique makes the flag nicely textural, but of course you could simply use red paper or card and stick the gold stars on.
Gather together an assortment of shiny materials, some glue and a crafty child, and see what they can put together!
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This was a very successful craft, but we did need to start with a clear, face-on self portrait and a good collection of papers to use for the collage.
Sam collaged an autumn tree but you can of course adapt the colours of tissue paper in this craft to make a lovely blossom tree for spring, a summer tree full of foliage, or perhaps an apple tree.
Younger children will enjoy practising their cutting and sticking skills to make this very effective cornucopia collage for Thanksgiving or Harvest Festival.
Here's a quick and easy way to make some really impressive snowmen! Using the round cotton wool pads that you can buy everywhere now means that you can build one of these in a jiffy, and take your time decorating it to make it special. A super winter craft for snowmen lovers.
Cutting, sticking, decorating, gold or silver card and jewels - what more could one need for this very royal crown craft!
This beautiful cockatoo collage is made simply with a few pieces of paper and some cupcake cases - but won't he look handsome on display!
This pretty dove collage using cupcake cases is quick and easy to make, and relatively mess-free, especially if you use a glue stick.
While you are waiting for your Halloween cupcakes to bake, why not have a go at this quick and easy ghost craft!
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This lovely owl craft involves sticking - always a favourite activity for kids! And WHOO would have known you could make such a lovely owl from cupcake cases! Instructions below.
This is an excellent activity for encouraging young children to look at shapes around them. It also provides cutting practice and helps children develop their fine motor skills. Older children will have fun choosing appropriate (or wacky) pictures to use to build their robots!
Using simple collage techniques and bright-coloured scraps of fabric, paper and card, kids can make this beautiful Diya collage card for Diwali. Of course you could make a bigger version to display during this Hindu festival, too.
Scrunching up tissue paper and gluing it somewhere is always a successful craft for little ones, and we think they will be thrilled with the results in this dolphin collage.
Here is a dragon collage craft idea for children, as well as a printable template you can use for your collage. This is a fun craft for kids of all ages at Chinese New Year - and particularly this year for Year of the Dragon - or St David's Day, St George's Day or a fairy tale theme.
This fun "cut and stick" activity allows children to dress Mr Wolf up with Grandma's cap and tuck him into Grandma's bed, ready to try to trick Little Red Riding Hood. You could cut out all the shapes ready for younger children to glue together.
Here's a quick Christmas craft for children of all ages which only needs some simple craft cupboard supplies. The elf shoe collage would make a cute home-made Christmas card...
Decorate your own beautiful, bejewelled Faberge egg! This craft can be adapted to suit a range of ages. Younger children can just "pile" it all on. Older kids might like to sketch out a careful design.
Even the youngest children will enjoy making this pretty fairy collage, and the template provided makes the activity a breeze. You may want to cut out the shapes in advance and leave the decorating and sticking up to the children.
A sailing flotilla is a glorious sight for any occasion - so why not capture the excitement with your own flotilla collage? A family, group or classroom of kids could make a fabulous display with a collection of these...
Little kids can have some fun drawing around feet, cutting out the shape, sticking it and ending up with this fabulous footprint horse!
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Enjoy this Giant Peach Craft when you are reading James And The Giant Peach, or when celebrating Roald Dahl Day!
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Here are three easy ways to make golden eggs - perhaps to accompany Jack in the Beanstalk, or at Easter.
Golden egg 1You will need:
Polystyrene egg Gold paint Gold glitterInstructions:
Shelly's fabulous lion craft provides an opportunity for younger children to practise their cutting skills!
Shelly and her children create some beautiful flower collages using templates from Activity Village in this guest blog post.
In this guest post, Shelly and her kids make a four seasons tree - a fun and easy season craft suitable for all ages and abilities...
It's always useful to have a stock of handmade greetings card ready to go, and this idea from Shelly is simple, quick and fun - and perfect for Mother's Day!
Here's a fun peacock craft for younger kids to do - it's quick, easy and you will certainly have what you need on hand.
Here's a quick and simple paper turkey craft idea, with three variations so that you can adapt it to suit the ages of your children.
Every royal occasion needs crowns - and these Union flag versions are stunning! To make them Shelly's kids used an interesting tracing technique...
This Harvest Basket is an adaptable craft which can be used to make a free-standing decoration for your mantelpiece or sideboard, a greetings card, or perhaps a set of place-card holders for your Thanksgiving or Harvest table.
This hedgehog collage is fun for ages - and as you can see it is very effective!
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The kids enjoyed using their liquorice to come up with all sorts of ideas for pictures - and of course some of them enjoyed eating the sweets afterwards, too. Be sure to take a photo or two before you eat the pictures, though!
This llama craft is really easy to do and it looks very cute and colourful. For younger children, picking up small objects such as pompoms is great to help them to develop their pincer grip and the fine motor muscles needed for writing.
Make this cute "lovebug card" out of many different sized heart shapes - fun for kids of all ages.
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Collage is a great activity which allows children to use their imagination and create a wonderful effect, whether they have innate artistic ability or not. And it is perfect for mixed age groups too. Creating a monster collage can be really imaginative, too, as anything goes!
Get the children used to the numbers of the New Year by letting them create their own crafty collage.
These little owls are quick and easy to make and look very cute glued to the front of a greetings card. Choose your colours to suit the recipient!
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A few shapes of dried pasta, some white paint, a little bit of imagination - and hey presto! You have a wonderful pasta skeleton to display at Halloween!
Break out the contents of your junk cupboard and let your kids design their own robot collage!
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Here's a lovely craft for younger children, which uses the shapes of St Basil's Cathedral in Moscow as its inspiration. Lots of cutting and sticking involved!
Kids can have ripping and crumpling and sticking to create this Santa face collage - a quick and easy craft for Christmas. Printable included.
Make a pretty, glittery, sequin fish with us - it's quick and easy to do and oh-so-pretty on display!
You can adapt this craft for a range of ages.
This shapes robot is an excellent craft for preschool children. If the shapes are pre-cut it is simply a sticking job, something all children love. This craft also provides an ideal opportunity to practice colour and shape vocabulary.
This sheep collage craft is so simple but includes all the elements loved by young children - glue and mess! My two year old loved this one.
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Our butterfly shape collage is a pretty way to reinforce shape learning with younger children and of course can be adapted for whatever materials you have on hand.
Here are some ideas for a ski collage picture for kids to make as a winter craft, or perhaps for the Winter Olympics or a sporting theme.
Mosaics are quick and satisfying to do and all ages of children enjoy them and display the results with pride. We've made a Jack-o-lantern but you could try your hand at a skull, Frankenstein, monster, mummy or ghost!
Here's a simple squirrel collage craft which can be achieved by all ages of kids - the youngest perhaps with a bit of help. Use good autumn colours for your collage!
This stained glass picture looks stunning standing against a window to catch the light - perfect to display in the bathroom, possibly! Children will enjoy the effect of the different colours of blue tissue paper. Using the stick-back plastic makes this a relatively mess-free craft, too.
Collage projects are great for all ages and abilities of children, as even the most reluctant or hesitant artist can produce an exciting result. They also work particularly well with mixed aged groups.
This is such a simple Valentine craft idea, but effective! Little children especially love scrunching up tissue paper, and even the youngest can get involved.
This is a lovely activity and it works well for a single child, a family or a classroom display. Sam wasn't feeling too loving when we did this, so our example lists some of the things he "likes" rather than "loves"!
Suitable for the youngest kids, this is messy cutting and sticking fun!
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Here is a quick and simple idea for a winter collage for kids which will give the kids a real sense of achievement.
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Gather some scraps of wool / yarn to make this pretty, textural autumn leaf. Do it in a group and you could end up with enough to make a lovely wreath or tree display. We've used autumn colours but you could do this with different shades of green and yellow too.
This pretty Christmas wreath is made from torn magazine paper and buttons, and is a perfect Christmas craft for all age of children, from youngest up.
