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There’s oceans of fun to be had with these easy paper plate fish

09 Jun 2021

Celebrate World Ocean Week with these creative and colourful fish out of water. Made from paper plates and inspired by tropical fish, this simple DIY décor is perfect for your kid’s bedroom or bathroom. Keep the theme going and paint a cabinet in sea blue Resene Lynchpin or just keep swimming with a vase in Resene Sea Fog. 

You will need:

  • 9 large paper plates
  • Scissors
  • Hot glue gun
  • Craft brushes in a variety of sizes
  • Paper cupcake cups
  • Resene testpots in your choice of colours – For the clown fish Fleur used Resene Daredevil, Resene Black and Resene White

 
Step 1:
Start with some plain white paper plates.  These plates are 26cm in diameter.


Step 2:
Use scissors to cut out fish shapes from 7 of the paper plates, such as the mouth and fins.


Step 3:
Use the 2 left over plates to cut out the tails.  Fleur found that cutting the plates into quarters was a good start for the tail shape.  Cut the tail into the final shape you want and attach it to the fish body with a hot glue gun.


Step 4:
Paint the fish using your choice of Resene testpot paints and small craft brushes.  Fleur was inspired by traditional tropical fish and used Resene Black, Resene Daredevil and Resene White, but you could choose to make up your own fish designs.  


Step 5:
Fold 7 paper cupcake cups into quarters and paint these for the fins. Fleur used Resene White and Resene Daredevil for the clown fish fins, with an outline in Resene Black.  


Step 6:
Use hot glue to attach the fins to the fish.


Step 7:
Attach the fish to the wall with blu tack. You can create a school of fish by repeating the process and using a variety of Resene testpot colours. Explore the range of testpots here https://shop.resene.co.nz/testpots

Project and images Fleur Thorpe

Published: 09 Jun 2021