Making Paper Plates into Fish

I had a ton of scrapbook paper left over from Lucky's photo shoot pennants.  I decided to use these to make some fun fish that I saw on the wall of our local playspace, Gather.

I started cutting the paper scraps I had into circles and even some triangles for the tails.  

Cutting circles is a little harder than I thought, but I didn't worry too much about keeping them perfect.  

I'm wasn't sure how all circles out of patterns would look, so I took some construction paper to amke some circles to help with the scales and bring it in a bit more. 

For the bodies I used some of the cheap single color paper plates in blue and lime green I had for the party.  I had purchased some decorated "1st birthday party" plates with whales and octopi on them but I also got some less expensive solid plates to mix in to help keep the costs down.  There were plenty of the solid plates, so why not have some fun?

I taped the "tails" to the back of the fish. (I could have glued them but I didn't want to have to wait for it to dry, there will be a lot of gluing on the fronts after all.  

Now it was time for the fun part, I started gluing the scales onto the rib of the fish and added some googly eyes to finish off the paper fish face.  

I tried hard to intersperse the patterned scales with the solid scales to give a good range of color and get a planned randomness.  

I purposely made the green fish "swim" in the other direction.  These were PERFECT to hang on a tiny bit of wall in between our living room and dining room.  

I will want to try this project again when Lucky is a bit older.  I think that a young child will have a blast gluing on scales.  Maybe a bunch of paper circles will be a fun thing to keep in my craft room...  Hmm.....  Stay tuned for more fun projects from Lucky's first birthday party!