Magazine Mosaics

This is a project that I used to do with my students and the results were beautiful. You could pick any theme- we used to translate this Ancient Greek style into Ancient Egyptian images, but as you can see it fits with jungle animals as well. I included a few tricks that aid in the process, but of course the most important piece is to create an image that is uniquely yours!

Materials

Magazines
Scissors
Glue stick
Sturdy paper
Pencil/ eraser
Containers (optional)

We always find these items helpful too:

Smock
Craft tray

Directions

Sketch out your idea first in pencil.

Flip through your magazines and find colours that you would like to use in your image. Gently tear out those pages and cut them into strips. Ours were approximately 1 centimetre in width. We then cut them into small pieces (to simulate tiles) that were 1 centimetre by 1 centimetre. (For younger children , you could do larger and I once had a student make such tiny tiles that she applied them with tweezers- it was magnificent!) If you wanted, you could use a small paper trimmer for this portion too. Our son placed the colours in small containers to keep them organized for him.

Don your smock. Using your glue stick, place a thin coating of glue on the back of your magazine tiles. You could do this on your craft tray or a scrap piece of paper to assure a full coverage. Or if you prefer, apply glue to the page and lay the “tiles” in place. Line up the edge of your tile with your lines and apply.

You may need to overlap tiles.

It is good to go over the edge as well.

For younger children, they may need to do some simpler modifications (as seen by the tiger’s facial lines) in order to create the image. However, older children may like the challenge of using only the designated size. If there is a tile that is not working for your intended vision, simply glue over it!