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Cheap and cheerful, tissue paper is great for ripping and scrunching, sticking and moulding, and for making suncatchers and flowers and cards and lots more. My little girl liked nothing more than tearing up tissue paper, rolling it into a ball and sticking it down to make something for me, and you'll see one of her first attempts - a pretty pink tissue paper heart - below. 15 years later it still hangs in my office!
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!
This interesting technique relies on art tissue paper, which "bleeds" when water is added and produces a lovely mingled effect. Children enjoy watching the colours bleed into each other and the finished result is a perfect leaf for autumn.
Have you tried "painting" with tissue paper? It's fun to do and the results can be unexpected and textural! This beach ball works well because the variation in colour enhances its 3D effect.
This was an experiment to see how the ink in our tissue paper would transfer itself to the lovely, textured watercolour paper. We ended up with some very pretty brightly-coloured paper which we cut into hearts for our home-made Valentine's Day cards.
Here is a quick and simple idea for a Chinese New Year or Spring craft which results in a pretty picture which any child will be proud of!
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Tearing, scrunching and sticking are popular activities with younger children, and this candy corn tissue paper collage is a fun way to incorporate all those things into a Halloween craft! It makes a satisfyingly textural picture, too. You can see the finished collage below.
Every Chinese New Year ends with a beautiful display of lanterns at the Lantern Festival. Your children can make their own colourful Chinese lantern craft for your Chinese New Year display. This lantern can be adapted for all ages of kids.
We've taken inspiration from Islamic geometric designs for this pretty stained glass window craft idea for kids.
We didn't intend this goldfish kite craft to fly - but the kids will have fun putting it together and it looks spectacular in a Chinese New Year display!
With 2022 being the Year of the Tiger we thought it would be fun to try a tiger craft. Here's how we did i
Shelly and her kids celebrate autumn with some seasonal activities in this guest post. They have lots of fun making some colourful autumn leaves using bleeding tissue paper and try some autumn acrostic poems too.
This is a lovely, colourful elephant-inspired craft that is perfect for Holi or perhaps while reading Elmer the Patchwork Elephant.
This bright and colourful sign starts off with a paint splat shape of card. Younger children will enjoy covering it with a mosaic of tissue paper and adding it to your Holi displays. It's a (relatively) mess-free Holi craft activity!
This is an interesting way to create a truly stunning picture of the harvest moon against a sunset sky, using tissue paper strips. Even the youngest children will enjoy doing this, or you could have a younger child make the moon while an older child creates the background.
This is a lovely craft to do with younger children and can be relatively mess free - although fingers are almost certainly going to end up gluey!
This large snowflake craft can be done with even the youngest children - perfect for dressing up the classroom or home for winter or at Christmas! And as you can see below, they look very pretty displayed in a window...
Make some of these beautiful little mini blossom trees with the kids - it's a sweet craft for Chinese New Year, Spring or perhaps a Japan theme. And won't it look pretty on display!
This cute paper plate scrunchy penguin is fun to make - scrunching and sticking the tissue paper to the paper plate gets delightfully messy and is always popular! The finished penguin is nicely textural for display, too.
This lovely craft idea allows you to take items from the recycling bin and turn them into something the kids will be proud to put on display! It's a lovely summer craft, and perfect to accompany the story of Little Red Riding Hood too.
This Scrunched Tissue Paper Egg is fun for younger kids and makes a lovely, textural display for Easter.
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You will need a steady hand to outline the calavera (Day of the Dead sugar skull) in PVA glue, and the patience to wait for the glue to dry, but I think you'll agree the result is worth it!
This pretty "stained glass" lotus flower is also a simple lesson in symmetry! It looks very pretty hung in a window for the light to shine through it, and would be perfect for Vesak celebrations.
You can see from the photo that our stained glass pumpkin craft looks fabulous on display in the window!
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Scrunching up tissue paper is always a great activity for younger children, who will also enjoy the stickiness of sticking it to the paper plate. This mobile looks colourful hung up "in the sky" and will illustrate how we change from sun in the daytime to the moon at night.
Scrunching up tissue paper and gluing it to something else is always such fun - and this finished beach ball picture is sure to be a favourite. If you print the colouring page onto card you could cut out the finished ball for display.
Hang or stick these beautiful butterflies at your window and watch the sun shine through!
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This is a lovely colourful tissue paper craft which you can make for Easter or for Remembrance Day
Ripping strips of tissue paper and gluing them is always fun - and the effect is so pretty that all ages of children will be proud of the tissue paper egg they produce!
With this tissue paper flowers craft idea, kids of all ages can produce a stunning bouquet of very pretty flowers quickly and easily!
This tissue paper football craft is great fun for little kids, who will love scrunching up the paper and sticking it to make a very textural soccer ball. This would be fun with a group of younger children at a football party: you could draw on the pattern and rip the tissue paper in advance.
We've used our hedgehog frame and a stack of brown tissue paper to make this gorgeous, textural hedgehog. It's a fun craft for all ages and a lovely way to pass a wet autumn afternoon.
This tissue paper poppy craft makes a simple craft for kids on Remembrance Day or perhaps in the summer time. You can also make a bundle of them and turn them into our poppy wreath.
This tissue paper printing technique is a very quick method of printing a Valentine's Day card - and we think you'll agree that it works well! Perfect if the kids want to make a big stack..
Make this tissue paper snowflake with the kids for a quick and easy Christmas or winter decoration. It's a classic idea but it never loses its appeal, and as the kids get older the snowflakes can get more and more complex.
This butterfly craft is perfect for younger children but can be enjoyed by all ages: older kids can design their butterfly while younger children will be happy to tear shapes and arrange them haphazardly. You can see examples of both types of butterfly below.
Little kids will enjoy making this tissue paper tennis ball. There's something very satisfying about scrunching the paper and sticking it down! And it looks great, too.
