Whenever I ask a group of preschool teachers, “Who has a ton of tissue paper that they never seem to use up?” most of the hands go up. Let’s put some to use and make beautiful scrunched tissue paper heart art!
Why we love scrunched tissue paper heart art
We love these for two main reasons: they’re cute and they’re LOADED with fine motor practice!
Just one on its own is adorable, but when you have a whole wall of them put together, it’s just about as cute as it gets. They’re colorful, three-dimensional, and each one has its own personality.
And behind all of its cuteness is fine motor mania. From cutting the heart to the actual scrunching to painting glue to pressing onto the heart, it’s fine motor, fine motor, fine motor!
Related: For more Valentine fine motor fun, our enormous 10-foot Valentine’s Day coloring banner is perfect for keeping your littles drawing, coloring, and painting.
Get ready to make one million scrunched tissue paper heart pieces
We always prep more materials than we think we will need. Most of the time, kids can’t make just one. We have found that kids LOVE scrunching up and crumpling the tissue papers, and they’ll keep coming back for more.
According to my calculations, approximately 8.9 billion Valentine’s Day crafts either use way too many materials or are way too crafty for our liking, but scrunched tissue paper hearts are in the sweet spot.
Grab your supplies and let’s make these 3-D little cuties!
Looking for more tissue paper art activities? These ones are wonderful.
- Tissue Paper Vase – Gluesticks Blog
- Tissue Paper Easter Eggs – Happy Hooligans
- Tissue Paper Art – It’s Always Autumn
Materials
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- Colored tissue paper cut into 2” x 2” squares (eyeball the size – it doesn’t have to be exact)
- Scissors
- Glue
- Water
- Small bowl
- Paintbrush
- White paper
- Colored cardstock (optional)
Directions
- Cut out heart: Cut out a heart from the white paper. This would be an excellent opportunity for your child to practice cutting!
- Paint the glue: Because tissue paper is light and does not need a lot of glue, we love providing our students with slightly diluted glue in a bowl with a paintbrush. Painted-on glue has just enough glue to make the tissue paper pieces stick without getting too heavy or damp. Paint the heart with glue.
- Add scrunched-up tissue papers: Invite your child to take one piece of tissue paper at a time and to scrunch it up, then place it onto the gluey heart. Continue scrunching and adding to the heart until it’s all covered up.
- Optional – Mount: The heart on its own is beautiful! However, if you want to mount the heart onto a larger piece of paper (such as a piece of colored cardstock), paint the back with glue and press it onto the colored cardstock. The fun thing about hearts is that they’re so colorful that almost any color the heart is mounted on will be perfect!
What are the benefits of tissue paper art for preschoolers?
One of the very best gifts that art has to offer is how frequently it embeds sensory learning and opportunities. Sensory isn’t separate from art but finds itself entwined in the process.
In this project, kids are activating:
✋🏼Touch: holding the tissue papers, scrunching them up, feeling the sticky glue, holding the paintbrush, pressing the tissue papers, and cutting them up.
👂🏻Hearing: listening to the tissue papers when they crumpled up and hearing the snips of the scissor blades against the tissue papers.
👃🏼Smell: smelling the glue as it’s poured out of the bottle and mixed with water.
👀Sight: observing the heart fill with colors, seeing the materials separated by type, comparing the background colors to glue the completed hearts onto.
FAQ
We do this with our preschoolers ages 2.5 – 6, but bigger kids would love this, too.
Whatever you love! Maybe a flower, rainbow, dinosaur, hand, sun…
Absolutely! Both color-fast and bleeding tissue paper will work perfectly.
Scrunched tissue paper heart art is a dream
Save the tissue paper the next time you’re at a party or get gifts! We always try to take any opportunity to turn trash into treasure – especially when we can turn it into gorgeous pieces of art.
Your kids will love these (and so will you!).
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