This is a great way to use up any paper scraps you might have left over from some other art projects! Paper mosaics are easy and can be made simple or into more detailed pieces of art. A mosaic is simply a piece of art that has been put together using smaller pieces of tiles (usually, stone, ceramic, shell, glass), typically of different colors, placed closely together to create a larger image or design. Instead of the typical tile and grout we may think of for mosaics, this project uses pieces of colored paper arranged closely together!
What you need:
- Scrap pieces of colored paper – You could also use magazines, junk mail, etc.
- Glue stick
- Scissors and/or paper cutter
- Piece of card stock or thicker paper to complete your mosaic on (my piece is appox. 5″x7″) You could also make it into a greeting card!
Step one: Gather your scrap papers! You can either cut your paper into a lot of geometric shapes in various sizes, or plan out a design – cutting blocks of colors that will get cut smaller later.
Step two: Start to arrange your pieces of cut paper on your card stock. You want your pieces to fit together like a puzzle – leaving small even gaps of the card stock showing between your pieces. Flip, rotate, and trim pieces as needed!
If you’ve cut larger pieces for a pattern, you can start to cut and separate into smaller pieces. You can also draw an outline of a shape or object to fill in like in the video.
Step three: Get your cats to help you.
Step four: Once you have your pattern started you can begin to glue down pieces – remember to leave the gaps between your pieces! The better your pieces fit together the more even gaps you’ll create between them! Sometimes you might have to cut and add little tiny pieces to fill in gaps. This is what give us the mosaic effect!
Step five: Keep going until you have your entire pattern glued down!
Make some awesome artwork just with paper! You can turn your finished paper mosaics into greeting cards, framed art, or incorporate them into collage artworks or even create them on wooden boxes with mod-podge instead of glue sticks! 🙂
This would be fun made with watercolor paper that has been color washed. Maybe I will cut up painting I don’t like!
That would be so awesome! You’ll have to let me know how it comes out! 🙂