This newspaper stuffed fish craft is perfect for keeping kids busy at home or at school. Made for newspaper and watercolor paints it is a very low-cost kid’s craft. Included is a free fish template that you can print and use but this craft is easy to do without by simply drawing your own fish shape. Get creative with different colors of cardstock for the tail and fins or try painting thin recycled cardboard or use a cover from an old magazine for a different but still amazing look!

Newspaper Stuffed Fish Craft

This post contains affiliate links. We earn a commission through linked sales which help us to keep our content free for you. Thank you for your support!

Our girls absolutely loved making this newspaper stuffed fish craft! They are 7 and 9 but it would also be suitable for older or younger children with some help from an adult. We are yet to display our fish but they would look great strung up on string for an underwater touch to a bedroom or for an undersea party. If you have any great display ideas then please leave a comment below!

Materials Needed

• Newspaper
• Watercolor paints and brushes
• Pen
• Scissors
• Cardstock or a thin recycled cardboard box
• Stapler
• Sticky tape
• The free printable below or draw your own fish shapes

Let’s Get Creating

Start by gathering all of the supplies from the Materials Needed list. If you are using the printable cut out all of the shapes. Place two sheets of newspaper together and either draw around the oval body shape or draw your own freehand oval. Take the paints and paint any design you like in the oval shape. Once you are happy with your design set it aside to dry.

Next, trace around the other three shapes onto the cardstock. We used a triangle for the tail and bottom fin and a half-circle for the top fin. Again if you are not using the printable then draw your own tail and fins and get creative, they don’t need to be the same shape as ours! Cut out these shapes and once the paint has dried move onto the next step.

Take the painted newspaper oval and cut it out, you should now have two newspaper ovals. On the bottom newspaper oval (the one without the paint) place the tail and fins in place. Use some sticky tape to stick them down but don’t worry too much as it will be all stapled together this will ensure you don’t lose a fin in the stapling process.

Place the painted oval on top making sure that the ovals match up correctly. Carefully holding the two pieces of newspaper together start to staple around the tail and fins making sure there are no large gaps. Once the tail half of the fish has been stapled together take some extra screwed up newspaper and gently stuff the fish. When the fish has been stuffed with newspaper continue to staple the fish closed. Add on the eye. Draw your own eye or stick on our printable eye.

You should now have yourself one beautiful recycled newspaper fish!

Other Fun Recycled Crafts

Have a look at these other great recycled kid’s crafts that are sure to keep the kids happy, busy, and creative.

• Toilet Roll & Milk Jug Bee
• Newspaper/ Magazine Shape Penguins
• DIY Glitter Snow Globe
• Magazine Collage Rainbow Craft

Thank you for stopping by. We hope you enjoyed making this newspaper stuffed fish craft today!