Sunshine Craft
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This fun craft idea works equally well for a pool party, or as a great rainy day project to encourage the sun to come back and shine. Bring a little bit of that summer sunshine inside with the Sunshine Craft. When you're done you'll have a fun smiling sun you can hang up in your home to cheer on summer.
What you'll need
- 1 small paper plate
- yellow tissue paper
- yellow craft paint
- white glue or tape
- One 2 - 3 inch piece of string or yarn
- 1 paint brush
- 1 sheet black construction paper
- 2 wiggly eyes
- newspaper (to cover and protect your surfaces)
- If you don't want to use paint, you can also use a marker to color the sun and draw on the sun's face.
- If you don't have any wiggly eyes you can cut some out of construction paper, or cut out a pair of sunglasses from construction paper for your sun wall hanging.
How to make it
Gather together all of your materials.
Cover your surface with newspaper and place the small plate on it, bottom side up.
Paint the entire bottom of the paper plate yellow with the craft paint. Set aside to dry.
While you're waiting on the paint to dry, cut out 25 2-inch squares out of the yellow tissue paper. If you're making these for a pool party, you may want to have an adult cut out the squares ahead of time. You can cut several squares at a time by stacking several pieces of tissue paper together before you cut them.
Once the paint is dry, poke your finger into center of a tissue square so that the tissue square is covering your finger (see photo). Dip the end of your covered finger into a little craft glue.
Turn the paper plate over (so the painted side is now face down) and glue the tissue squares to the outside edge of the plate (see photo). Repeat this until you have tissue paper squares all the way around the outside of the plate making the sun's rays.
Glue or tape your piece of string or yarn to the top part of the plate to make a hanger. Put a little glue on each end of the string and adhere it to the plate, leave the string a little loose in the middle to hang the sun once you're finished. Set plate aside and wait for the glue to dry.
While you give the glue a few minutes to dry, cut out a mouth for your sun from black construction paper. To make a smiling mouth, trace 1/3 of the way around a small glass, then draw in a second curving line that makes the mouth narrow at the edges and wider in the center. If you'd like you can add two small triangle shapes to each end of the smile for dimples (like in the photo).
Cut out the mouth. If you're making these for a party, you may want to cut out several mouths ahead of time and prepare them for the kids to paste on.
Once your plate is totally dry, flip it over so the painted side is up.
Glue on the wiggly eyes and the mouth.
Hang your craft on a wall or door using the string on the back.
