My kids love doing crafts. Seasonal crafts are a fun way to get the kids involved in making some festive decorations for our home. We made these colorful tissue paper leaf sun catchers, which look like stained glass! Tissue paper sun catchers are easy to make with card stock and pieces of tissue paper.
Make the Leaf Shapes
To make DIY leaf sun catchers, you’ll need a few simple materials.
- dark colored cardstock
- tissue paper in assorted colors
- several large leaves
- pencil for tracing
- scissors
- craft glue
- parchment paper
Make these tissue paper sun catchers look like real leaves! To get started, choose a few large leaves from your backyard maple tree.
Trace around the leaves onto a dark colored piece of card stock. If you trace around actual leaves, your stained glass tissue paper sun catchers will look more realistic. Also, if you make a variety of sun catchers, each leaf shape will be different.
Alternatively, you can save our printable template! Click on the image below to open it in a new window.
Cut Out the Tissue Paper Sun Catchers
Once you’ve traced around a large leaf onto card stock, cut out the leaf shape with scissors. Next, cut out the inside of the leaf, leaving a 1 inch border around the edge. This leaf shape will be the base for gluing on colorful pieces of tissue paper.
It’s best to use dark colored cardstock such as red, green, and brown to make the sun catcher leaf outlines. Consequently, dark colored card stock will create more of a striking contrast when the light shines through the tissue paper in your window.
Cut Up Colored Tissue Paper Squares
Next, cut up an assortment of colored tissue paper into small squares or diamond shapes. Arrange the tissue paper squares inside the card stock leaf shape. Your sun catcher will be prettier if you arrange contrasting colors next to each other. You could also make a monochromatic leaf sun catcher using all reds and oranges. Alternatively, you could make a cool tone sun catcher using a variety of blue and green tissue paper.
Design Your Tissue Paper Sun Catchers
Once you’ve cut up an assortment of tissue paper into squares, it’s time to design your leaf sun catcher. You can use a piece of parchment paper as a workspace, to prevent the glue and tissue paper from sticking to the table. If you are working on another piece of paper, be careful to not let your leaf sun catcher dry and get glued onto the piece of paper.
Start from the edge and glue small pieces of tissue paper next to each other, working your way towards the leaf center. Fill in the inside of the sun catcher with small pieces of tissue paper glued side by side. Use dots of glue to connect the edges of the tissue paper pieces together.
Important! Allow your finished tissue paper sun catcher to fully dry on a piece of parchment paper.
Hang up these leaf sun catchers in your windows to give your home some festive fall color!
Tissue Paper Sun Catchers Kids Project
Kids can practice some great skills by making these tissue paper sun catchers. Seasonal kids crafts are especially fun to make to decorate your home.
Cutting paper helps kids practice using a pair of scissors and cutting precisely along a line. You can also teach kids about how to safely handle a pair of scissors. Cutting up the tissue paper is good practice for working with delicate materials and cutting out small shapes.
Arranging the tissue paper encourages kids to create a thoughtful design and consider color placement. Furthermore, overlaying different colors of tissue paper helps kids learn about mixing colors to create new colors. Each leaf sun catcher will show off different color combinations and unique overlapping shapes.
Gluing everything together helps kids learn how to use small amounts of glue, as well as caution to not create a mess. Additionally, kids can practice fine motor skills by arranging each piece of tissue paper in place.
Finally, finishing the project is a fun accomplishment and your kids will be excited to show off their creation in your home!
Colorful Fall Window Decorations
DIY sun catchers are fun to design and easy to make. These stained glass paper leaves are a very pretty way to decorate windows for fall.
My kids really enjoyed making their own stained glass paper leaves. We kept these leaf sun catchers in our window from September to November. Kids leaf crafts like these sun catchers are a crafty way to bring the fall colors indoors!
Hi, I’m Katie! I live with my husband and 3 kids in beautiful Coeur d’Alane, Idaho. I love Jesus, coffee, DIY projects, photography, homeschooling my kids, traveling, and serving people. I’ve previously worked as a graphic designer, web designer, journalist and barista. I started Create. Play. Travel. to share some of our creative projects and family adventures. I hope you enjoy the highlights of our creative family life!
Thanks for the fall tissue paper stained glass activity instructions.