Easy Paper Jellyfish Craft

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Are you looking for an Easy Paper Jellyfish Craft to try with your kids’ this Summer?

Our latest jellyfish craft is perfect for children of all ages and is open to all sorts of beautiful colors and designs!

This craft is a great fit for under the sea and ocean themed topics, and can be paired with our how to draw a jellyfish, bobble head jellyfish and our scrape painted silhouette sharks, which uses the same artistic technique as our jellyfish!

Complete with a printable template, our jellyfish craft can be made at home and scaled up for a classroom setting. This is a cut and stick craft with the option to color with paint, crayons or collaged paper – can you imagine how fun and interesting a jellyfish school display could look?!

How to Make the Easy Jellyfish Craft with your Kids

This craft can be completed with various materials and mediums. Our jellyfish has been colored using the scrape painting technique and textured with some simple straw printing. If you have any scrap bubble wrap to hand, this may also work to texturize the jellyfish.

The Scrape Painting Technique

As the name suggests, it is the art of scaping paint across a canvas. Scrape painting is such a fun and effective technique for blending colors and creating cool textures.

All you need is paint, ideally acrylic paint and scraps of card/cardboard or an old bank card. Essentially the “scraper” needs to be sturdy with a flat edge. It needs to be easy for little hands to hold and manoeuvre, and strong enough to be scraped across a canvas – in this example, a pieces of white card stock. 

Recommended Materials:

White Cardstock for Printing
Paint
A Paper Straw
Colored Paper or Card Stock
Scissors
A Glue Stick
A Paintbrush or Pencil

Download the Jellyfish Template:

The jellyfish template is available to members of the Arty Crafty Kids club.

Members will need to log in to access the template: https://www.artycraftykids.com/product/easy-paper-jellyfish-craft-template/

Not a Member?

TIP: Before printing, check the paper setting for printing onto white card stock and select “Fit to Page”.

Watch the Step by Step Video Tutorial:

Let’s Make a Jellyfish!

Remove the Eyes from the Jellyfish Template

Print the jellyfish template onto white card stock.

Carefully remove the eyes from the template by cutting one straight line below the jellyfish.

Cut the Surrounded Space into Squares

Next, cut around the eyes and put the scrap paper to one side.

Cut the scrap paper into smaller square shapes.

Apply Blots of Paint onto the Jellyfish Template

Apply several blots of paint to the top of the jellyfish.

Take a Square and Scrape the Paint from Top to Bottom

Take a square and gently scrape the paint from the top of the jellyfish to the bottom.

If the paint blots are positioned closely together, the scraper tool will pick up and blend the colors.

This is a great opportunity for Arty Crafty Kids to observe what happens to the colors. Can they describe what happens to the paint and the new colors they create?

Continue Scraping to Fill the Jellyfish

Continue scraping the paint across the jellyfish and remove any excess paint by scooping it up with the square card stock.

Texturize with Straw Prints

While the jellyfish looks lovely with its paint scraped make-over, Arty Crafty Kids may wish to explore texture by layering the jellyfish with circular prints.

This effect can be created by dipping the end of a straw into a contrasting color and simply printing in a sporadic fashion across the jellyfish.

Glue the Eyes onto the Painted Jellyfish

Once the jellyfish is colored and dry, glue the eyes onto the painted area.

Glue a Row of Colorful Paper Strips

Select an array of colorful pieces of paper and cut the sheets into fine strips.

Turn the jellyfish over, apply a generous helping of glue across the bottom of the jellyfish and glue a row of paper strips along the gluey area.

Curl the Paper Strips

Once full with paper strips, turn the jellyfish over.

Take a paintbrush or pencil and carefully curl the ends of the paper trips around the “curler”.

Continue Curling to Complete the Paper Jellyfish Craft

Carefully remove the curled paper from the pencil/ paintbrush and move onto the next paper strips.

Once all the paper strips are curled, the paper jellyfish craft is complete!

I hope your Arty Crafty Kids enjoy making their very own jellyfish! As always, we love to see their creativity in action – If you share their gorgeous makes on social media, please do give us a tag! 

More Ocean Crafts for Kids:

We have lots of ocean animal crafts, art projects and activities to explore alongside our jellyfish! To help get you started, here are a few of our favorites!