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Easy Contact Paper Mandalas

Posted on May 20, 2014 11 Comments

Make these simple, yet stunning, contact paper mandala suncatchers with your kids and fill your home or classroom with gorgeous vibrant colours and patterns.

Easy Contact Paper Mandalas

I have a bit of ‘thing’ for mandalas. I love the symmetry of them, and the patterns, and circles within circles. There is just something magical about them.

I seem to have passed on my mandala love to my kids too, as they were all super keen to have a go at this easy contact paper mandala activity.

How to Make a Contact Paper Mandala

The beauty of this mandala craft activity is that you only need a handful of supplies to make it. There is no glue required, so there is less mess so you can fill your windows with glorious mandalas!

To make your own contact paper mandalas you’ll need:

  • Contact/Self adhesive paper.
  • Tissue paper cut into various shapes
  • Sequins (optional)
  • Mandala template (optional) – see below to download.

Easy Contact Paper Mandalas

If you are crafting with toddlers and preschoolers you might like to pre-cut the tissue paper into some basic shapes. Or you could cut the tissue paper into thin strips to make it easier for little hands to cut. Older kids can cut out their own selection of circles, squares, triangles and whatever other shapes they like from the tissue paper.

I got my kids to cut some shapes while I created a simple mandala template and printed out a few copies. If you are keen to create mandalas with repeating patterns and symmetry, then the printable template comes in handy. It can also be a good starting place for a reluctant crafter, but you can create your mandalas ‘free hand’ without the template just as easily.

You can download the pdf mandala template here

To prepare the contact paper, use a plate to draw circles onto the back of the contact paper, and cut them out. Peel off the backing paper and tape them sticky side up, on top of the templates with just a tiny piece of tape on each side.

Now you are ready to make some mandalas!

Easy Contact Paper Mandalas

Using the contact paper means you don’t need to fuss around with glue, so the mandalas are created quickly and easily. It does mean that when you put the tissue paper down it is stuck in that spot forever, even if you change your mind, so you might need to talk about that before you begin. For my kids this started out as a problem, but led to some interesting experiments with overlapping colours, and some lateral thinking to change ‘mistakes’ into master pieces.

Easy Contact Paper Mandalas

Making mandalas is a great way to learn about symmetry and repeating patterns. I just love it when art and maths combine!

Some kids will love carefully creating a symmetrical design, but there is also joy in making pictures and other designs with the shapes, and little hands will feel successful sticking whatever they want, wherever they want to make bright patterns and creations.

Easy Contact Paper Mandalas

I love an activity like this, where there are no rules, and everyone can do their own thing and enjoy the process of creating. It’s perfect when you have a group of children of differing ages or abilities as everyone can join in and be successful.

But be warned – you’ll be cutting out more and more contact paper circles because there is no way you can make just one of these contact paper mandalas!

Easy Contact Paper Mandalas

You can use any kind of paper to make these mandalas, but we chose to use tissue paper for this activity because of it’s translucent properties. When you are done making your tissue paper mandalas you can simply stick them up onto a window and you have an instant mandala suncatcher!

We displayed our mandalas on our large glass sliding doors and they looked gorgeous with the sun illuminating all the bright colours!

Easy Contact Paper Mandalas

You can also stick your contact paper mandalas onto a large sheet of paper to display them. Mandalas made with brightly coloured craft paper and sequins would look amazing on a black background!

We’d love to see your contact paper mandalas!

If you give this fun mandala craft a try, we’d love to see the results!

Feel free to share a photo on my facebook page, or tag me @picklebums on instagram or twitter so we can see all the brightly coloured mandalas!

If you are looking for more activities and ideas that work with groups of kids of different ages, check out these ideas for multi-aged groups.

20 Activities that work for multi-age groups

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Filed Under: Activities for kids Tagged With: activities for preschoolers, activities for school kids, activities for toddlers, art for kids

Read the comments or scroll down to add your own:

  1. Barbara says

    What a fun activity! My boys would love doing this!

    Reply
  2. Kim Wilson says

    This is such a great idea! And it takes me back. We made something similar to this when I was in school. I could never cut straight and mine always turned out awful! Nowadays, the only time I break out the self adhesive contact paper is when the kids want to make paper turkeys at Thanksgiving. That much I can handle! I’m jealous of your cutting skills!

    Reply
  3. Emma says

    These are beautiful! I love the patterns and designs your kids came up with too!

    Reply
  4. Debs says

    Love these Kate. They look just gorgeous!

    Reply
  5. Danya Banya says

    These are fantastic!

    Reply
  6. Nichole {youclevermonkey} says

    Clever idea to use the template underneath to keep them symmetrical! Pinning :)

    Reply
  7. hilke says

    Nice idea!!!!!!!

    Reply
  8. gina says

    love these!! Just love them.

    Reply
  9. Jenny says

    These are so pretty. I think even my 2 year old would have fun with this!

    Reply
  10. Kate Lloyd says

    Gorgeous! I want to do this myself. ;)

    Reply
  11. Viki says

    These are really cute and I’m definitely going to make them with my grand. To tell the truth, I’ve never heard of clear contact paper, so I’ll look around. My grand has something called Sensory Processing Syndrome, so I don’t know how long she’ll be “interested”, but I will certainly give it a shot. Thanks for the project.

    Reply

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