Today I’m going to share a simple project with you: Tissue Paper Bowls

Sometimes we don’t take the time to realize just how many materials we have available in our homes right now… or how easily (and cheaply) available materials are in our local environment. And remembering this can mean you have plenty available to keep a young child busy without a whole lot of planning.

I appreciated remembering this last Saturday when I got a late afternoon call asking if I was available to hang out with the four year granddaughter for a few hours.  It sounded like fun to me so I started digging through my gift wrapping box, grabbing pieces of pink, red and white tissue paper.  Sunday was Valentine’s Day so I had a purpose here… though these bowls can be made around any theme for a number of reasons.

Looked in my pantry to see if I had any plain cardboard bowls available, grabbed a bottle of glue and headed over to the granddaughters to create Valentine surprises for Mom and Dad.

From this…

to this….

Notice we used Qtips to spread the glue… and here’s a tip, dilute the glue with water… tissue paper doesn’t require much glue for good ‘stick’. Plus watered down glue spreads so much easier. Feel free to use fingers or paint brushes for spreading if you prefer.

We ended up with six bowls (though my plan was 2 -3)  Of course, when using glue you have to give things time to dry (note: watered down glue also dries faster ;-)) but doing six bowls gave the first couple time to dry while we kept busy creating more.

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We then had great fun filling these beautiful little bowls with conversation hearts and other little tokens of love. (I was just thankful they didn’t all end up glued to the table)

And a little girl very satisfied with a job well done, eagerly anticipating Mom and Dad’s surprise in the morning!