Jar Lid Fishes
Featured Crafts
Supplies Needed
- Jar lids (metal or plastic)
- Construction paper
- White glue
- Scissors
- String
- Pencil
- Wiggle eyes
- Masking tape or clear tape
- Small coins, small round bells, beans, grains, or rice (optional)
- Small magnet (optional)
STEPS
1Prepare some jar lids.
Collect and clean several metal or plastic jar lids.
2Draw the fish's body on paper.
First thing you need to do is to draw the fish's body on a sheet of construction paper. The body can be round, oval, or any shape you like and must be the same size or larger than the jar lid.
For our fish, we wanted to draw a body that's the same size and shape as the lid. To do this, we placed the jar lid over a sheet of construction paper then traced around the outline of the lid with a pencil.
3Cut out the fish's body.
Cut out the shape.
4Make the fins, tail and mouth.
With the size of the fish's body in mind, cut out basic paper shapes like triangles and hearts to make the fins, tail, and mouth.
5Decorate the body.
Decorate the fish's body. Check out these ideas:
- Cut or punch out shapes and glue them on.
- Decorate with small stickers or colorful washi tape.
- Glue some sequins. Seashell sequins look just like fish scales. Arrange them in overlapping rows to create a scaled fish!
- Draw lines, dots and patterns using crayons, markers or colored pencils.
- Paint details with a paint brush, a q-tip, or your fingers.
- Add sparkly lines and dots with glitter glue or make raised lines using puffy paint.
6Decorate the fins and tail.
You can also draw colorful lines on the fins and tail.
7Glue the parts together.
Flip the body so that the undecorated side is facing up. Glue the top fin, bottom fin and tail, decorated side facing down. Glue the mouth as well.
8Glue the side fin and eye.
Flip the fish again so that the decorated side is now facing up. Glue a wiggle eye or draw an eye. Glue the side fin as well. Set the fish aside to dry.
9Attach a string.
Tape a string inside the jar lid or fix the string in place with a glue gun.
10Glue the fish onto the lid.
Squeeze some white glue around the edges of the jar lid's mouth. Glue the fish onto the lid, making sure that the string is positioned right under the top fin. Press lightly on the edges to fix the fish onto the lid. Let the glue dry completely.
11Create more fishes.
Make a couple more jar lid fishes to create a colorful school of sea creatures. Hang them on the porch, window sill, or anywhere they can rotate and "swim" freely. You can also tie the strings onto a branch, a dowel, or even a hanger to create a mobile.
More Ideas
Make a shaker or noisemaker.
To make a shaker or noisemaker, fill the jar lid with small coins, tiny jingle bells, rice or beans before gluing the fish onto the lid.
These fun fish shakers are great to make for summer or ocean-themed parties, events, parades and activities.
Create a rattle or maracas.
Add a craft stick handle at the back of each shaker or noisemaker to turn them into rattles or maracas. Fix the craft stick in place with white glue or with a glue gun.
Use patterned cardstock.
Create lovely fishes in a jiffy. Draw the fish's body on patterned cardstock—no need to decorate your fishes!
Play a fishing game.
Create a fishing rod by tying a string around the end of a wooden dowel or an unsharpened pencil. Tape the other end of the string onto a small magnet.
Make some fishes using small metal jar lids. To start fishing, place the fishes bottom side up and catch them with your magnet fishing rod.
Make some fridge magnets.
Use a glue gun to attach a small magnet at the back of each jar lid fish to make some ocean-themed fridge magnets.
