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The Craft Train

Crafty ideas for kids and parents

You are here: Home / Crafts and Activities / General Crafts / light up reef craft

light up reef craft

July 15, 2022 By Kate 8 Comments

This post may contain affiliate links. I may receive commissions for purchases made through links in this post at no cost to you.

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Make a tropical reef craft that lights up in the dark! This is a fun Summer craft to help kids learn about and appreciate our planet’s coral reefs. 

Note: LED tea lights are safe to use with paper because they don’t create heat, but to be extra safe switch it off when not in the room and don’t leave it on for long periods. This will also help the batteries last longer.

You might also like our paper roll fish

Light up tropical reef craft idea for kids. This egg carton reef lights up in the dark

There’s something magical about the world contained within the ocean, especially coral reefs. All those colours and marine animals!

We don’t live in the tropics but we’ve been snorkelling on some of the reefs found in Australia and also in Hawaii. We’d love to go back some day.

Until then, we’ve created our own coral reef from tissue paper in an egg carton base. To turn it into a nightlight we’ve used a set of colour-changing LED tea light candles. Our candles have little switches on the base of each one, but I also noticed you can buy candles that come with a remote control – that would make it way quicker to turn the reef lights off and on in one go!

The “light up” feature is not essential. If you don’t have any LED tea lights and don’t want to buy any just screw some coloured tissue paper into balls instead. Your reef craft will still look great.

I also raided my kids’ loom band collections for this craft, and coincidentally some of the loom bands glow in the dark. I didn’t realise this until I switched the lights out—it was one of those awesome mistakes.

How to make a light up tropical reef craft

reef craf materials

You will need

    • An egg carton – we’ve used a white one but any colour will do (or you could paint one white if you want)
    • Tissue paper in a range of colours
    • Loom bands
    • Pipe cleaners
    • A set of our printable tropical fish
    • Glue stick
    • Scissors
    • Metal skewer

How to

Cut tissue paper into squares that are roughly the right size to cover the LED candles. Wrap them over the top of the candle, leaving the base of the candle where the switch is uncovered so that you can turn it off and on. Use a loom band to secure the paper in place.

Cover the LED candles with a small square of tissue paper

Complete this step for twelve candles so that you have a piece of “glowing coral” in each egg carton cup.

Next you will need to make some tissue paper coral, we’ve created two different types.

Type one: twist a large square of tissue paper into branches and tie each branch in three places with a loom band. Make two or three of these for your reef.

Make twisted tissue paper coral tied with loom bands

Type two: Fold a square of tissue paper over several times and fringe it with a pair of scissors. Then separate the fringed pieces and roll them up to look like little pom poms. Tie at the base with a loom band. We made some in pink and also in yellow for our reef.

Make fringed tissue paper coral

Poke the tissue paper coral into the reef to decorate, it doesn’t need to be glued.

tissue paper coral for a tropical reef craft

Make the fish using our printable template. You will need five fish, so pick your five favourites from the printable (or draw your own).

free printable paper fish

Cut out each oblong of two fish facing each other. Fold in half along the dotted line then trim roughly around the fish leaving a thin white border. 

kids tropical fish craft with free printable

Cut pipe cleaners in half and then glue inside the folded fish, so you have a double-sided fish on a pipe cleaner.

Add the fish to the reef

Poke holes in the pointy parts of your egg carton using a metal cake skewer. Poke a fish into each hole.

Easy reef craft idea for kids

This is our finished reef with the tea lights switched off, it still looks pretty cool without them.

egg carton reef craft for kids – this cool tropical reef made of tissue paper lights up in the dark!

This is what it looks like with the lights switched off…

fish craft with lights switched off

To take glow in the dark photos I’ve used a blacklight (like the kind you get at discos that make white socks turn electric blue). These are fun to own for photography purposes but you don’t need one – unless you want have a kid’s disco at home!

glow in the dark reef craft idea

So pretty… it really makes me want to go on holidays again, ha ha! 


 

You might also like

  • Make a jelly fish softie using our free printable template
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  • These egg carton goldfish are so cute and easy to make!

Fun reef craft idea for kids

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Basic God’s Eye craft for kids
Egg carton goldfish craft

Comments

  1. 1

    Edna says

    July 4, 2020 at 7:40 am

    It is a wonderful idea to do something out of little materials that every one has them in the house. The outcome is so charming! Thank you for your great video as well. Lovely.

    Reply
    • 2

      Kate says

      July 5, 2020 at 8:15 am

      You’re welcome!

      Reply
  2. 3

    Dalene says

    April 21, 2022 at 1:56 am

    I am excited to do this craft with a study of coral reefs. I am not finding the fish printable, though. Where I do find the tropical fish printable?

    Reply
    • 4

      Kate says

      April 22, 2022 at 5:35 am

      Hi, you need to fill out the details in the email form and the fish printable will be sent to you

      Reply
  3. 5

    SJ says

    June 6, 2022 at 11:43 pm

    Could you send me the fish printable please?

    Reply
    • 6

      Kate says

      June 7, 2022 at 5:41 am

      Hi, you need to put your details into the email form within the article and it will be sent to you automatically

      Reply
  4. 7

    Kathleen says

    July 3, 2022 at 10:23 am

    I watch my grandkids a few days a week and we love to make crafts. Im always looking for something new. I love this coral reef idea. I can teach them all about coral reefs, while having fun makng crafts!!

    Reply
  5. 8

    Miss Ong says

    November 21, 2022 at 3:56 am

    Great idea !

    Reply

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  • Kate GronoKate GronoCrazy Craft Fanatic

    I’m basically a big kid who never grew up and still loves to muck around with paint, glitter, glue and toilet rolls. With the crafts shared here on this website I’m hoping to give other parents and carers inspiration to get crafty with their kids at home – make our projects, or use them as a source of inspiration to spark ideas of your own. When it comes to crafting no rules apply!

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