In the March issue (#42) of BRILLIANT BRAINZ children’s magazine, we challenged readers to create a colourful collage house, inspired by the featured artist, Sonia Delaunay. Together with her husband, Robert, Delaunay founded the Orphism (Simultanism) art movement, which was “an exploration of the interaction between colours and movement in abstract art.” Sonia Delaunay’s paintings are fabulously colourful and make a joyous visual for your child to emulate.
Making a collage house is a great way for kids to experiment with colour, while having fun making something at home. The great thing with this colourful DIY art project is that your kids can probably find all the things they need around the house and get straight to it! Yay!!
You can see how excited and creative some of our readers got having a go at this project. The kids (mums!) sent in their photos showcasing their completed Collage House art projects and made it onto the Readers letters page of their <ahem!> favourite children’s magazine!

In each issue of BRILLIANT BRAINZ, we feature a different artist or artistic movement to draw inspiration from and design a special corresponding DIY art project for the children to have a go at. It’s a great way for your children to get exposed to lots of artistic ideas, themes, and styles, and have a go at reproducing those styles in their own way, too! It’s just a terrific way to give full rein and encouragement to all that innate creativity your kids have!
So, would you like to have a go with your child too? Here’s our guide for you and your budding Van Gogh to follow…
HOW TO MAKE A COLOURFUL COLLAGE HOUSE
Make a cut-out cardboard house and decorate it with lots of colour and craft embellishments.

Intro: Colour & feelings
Colour is used in art to show different emotions. In Ancient Egyptian art, each colour had various symbolic meanings. The Egyptian words for ‘character’ and ‘colour’ are the same, so colour could help to show an animal or god’s personality or nature.
Multi-coloured things are usually associated with ‘fun’, ‘joy’, and ‘happiness’. The artist Sonia Delaunay created vibrant colourful paintings and products using a mix of contrasting shades of colours and hues.
The Art Project
You will be making a cutout cardboard house that will be decorated with lots of colour and craft embellishments. You can use a mix of materials – whatever you have lying around really – and make it as jazzy and fun as you like. You can cut out windows and doors and place colour behind them so that, when hung on a window, it will have a ‘stained glass’ effect. The idea behind this project is to create something bright, full of pattern and colour that makes you feel happy. Take a look at some of Sonia Delaunay’s work and colour combinations for inspiration…
You will need:
- A piece of recycled cardboard – (a cereal box is good as it is quite thin.)
- A pencil
- Scissors
- Stick glue & PVA/Stronger glue
- Glue stick/brush
- Colourful collage materials: E.g, tissue paper, coloured card, magazine cut outs, your own coloured pages
- Craft embellishments: Pom poms, sequins, match sticks, lollipop sticks
- Colouring pencils or felt tip pens
The Steps
1.) Draw a house shape using a pencil. As it will be decorated with lots of colour, keep it simple. If it helps, think of it as joining shapes, like a triangle shape on top of a square.
2.) Add other details in pencil, such as a door, some windows, and a chimney.
3.) Cut the house out using scissors, and cut out the doorway and windows so these are ‘holes’ to put colour behind. Ask for help, particularly if your cardboard is quite thick.
4.) Now it’s time to decorate. Start by putting some colour behind the windows. Something transparent like tissue paper works well.
Top Tip A – If you are using a semi-transparent material, you can overlap colours to mix and create new colours. These will be more noticeable when you hold it to the light.
5.) Continue decorating your house. Add lots of different colours to the surface of your house, in different materials. Remember that thicker more textured materials would require a glue like PVA, while paper and card work with stick glues or PVA. You can also define your windows and doorways using a felt tip pen or crayon – or strips of coloured paper/card.
Top Tip B – You can make your own colourful papers by drawing patterns on paper, and then cut these into little shapes to stick on your house.
6.) Keep colour in mind – and keep contrasting colours near each other to enhance them. When you have finished, you can try sticking your house onto a window to let the light shine through and the colours dance!


Want more fun art projects for kids to do at home?
Then, 1) Raid the SHOP link above for our back issues catalogue, and 2) Subscribe now to get your monthly children’s magazine delivered to your doorstep!