Stained Glass Effect Craft

Why not make some fun 'stained glass' effect pictures to hang in your little one's windows and see them light up in the bright sunshine?  For this activity you'll need:-

• some black card
• assorted coloured tissue papers
• glue
• a craft knife (for you to use in preparation)
• some child safe scissors

Prepare some templates one evening whilst the children safely tucked up in bed!  Take the sheets of card and cut them into shapes and then, using the craft knife, cut holes in them.  Make sure you have thick borders around your holes because these will become 'frames' for the tissue paper to be stuck to.  Here are some ideas of pictures you can make-

• Parrot: cut out a parrot shape then cut out holes inside the tail, holes for the body and wings, the head and perhaps a crest on top
• Rainbow: cut rainbow arcs into a whole piece of card, making one arc hole for each colour of your rainbow
• Fish: cut the card into a fish shape then score out stripy markings using the craft knife
• Peacock: If you're feeling really artictic, cut out the shape of a peacock making a fan tail with long holes with small round holes at the top

If you aren't overly artistic, just cut shapes into the card because once the tissue effect has been created, they'll still make wonderful patterns.

Once you have prepared your templates, have your children cut out coloured pieces of tissue to stick over the holes. Use this as an exercise to practice your colours by talking about the colours you need and what colours you are cutting out.  Glue the tissue shapes into place and then hang your pictures in the window.  As the light shines through, you'll have some lovely bright art!