Tissue Craft: Bright & Shiny Tinfoil Hearts

By Emy Sloan

My kids just recently had a birthday. They had such a wonderful time at their party with all of their friends- I’m so thankful for all of the amazing people in our lives! As well as having an awesome time they ended up with some fun new toys…and I ended up with TONS of leftover gift bags and tissue paper! Yes!! I’m planning on never having to buy a gift bag again in my life because of all that I’ve hoarded from various showers, birthdays, Christmases, ect. The tissue paper was looking pretty rough and crumpled after my kids had their way with it, but instead of throwing it away we decided to keep it for art projects!

There is just so much that you can do with tissue paper! One of our favorite things to do is to cut it up into little pieces and ‘paint’ it on to various surfaces. With so many great colors and patterns to choose from, my kids were ready to get started right away!

We decided to try painting the tissue onto a tinfoil surface this time around. I had the idea to make hearts since the kids were doing some ‘thank you’ art for their grandparents.

They turned out great!

Bright & Shiny Tinfoil Hearts

Here is what you’ll need:

Supplies:

Tissue Paper (cut into bits)

Liquid Starch

Paintbrushes

Empty Cereal Box

Tinfoil

Scissors

Baking Pan (optional)

First things first- I had the kids choose the colors of tissue they wanted to use and cut it up into tiny bits.

I used cardboard from an empty cereal box to create a more solid tinfoil surface to paint on. I simply cut out the heart shapes and folded the foil over them. So bright. So shiny.

I set up workstations in baking pans (for easier clean-up.) Little bowls of liquid starch, paintbrushes and bowls of tissue.

It was interesting to see the differences in techniques.

My daughter was very serious about brushing enough starch onto the heart before choosing just the right color and shape of tissue. She would then place it carefully, making sure there were no folds or bends before slowly brushing more starch over the top.

My son would slap the starch around furiously and throw down several pieces of tissue at a time. The more he could get on there the better! And he was easily distracted with how he could pick up each piece with his paintbrush.