Arabic Initial Recycled Tissue Paper {Tutorial}

Today we will looked around our house to reuse/reduce/recycle items around us to create the 20th letter of the Arabic alphabet, Fa.

Fa is the first letter of farasha, the Arabic word for butterfly.

The butterfly plays a big part in one of my favorite stories about patience. I learned this story while going to Saturday Quran school as a child. It has always stayed with and I love to share it with children.

“Once there was a man who asked Allah for a flower and a butterfly. But instead Allah gave him a cactus and a caterpillar. The man was sad. He didn’t understand why his prayer was not answered. Then the man thought, “Oh well, He has so many people to care for,” and he decided not to question Allah. After some time, the man went to check up on the cactus and the caterpillar. To his surprise, from the thorny and ugly cactus, a beautiful flower had grown. And the unsightly caterpillar had been transformed into the most beautiful butterfly. Allah always does things right.”

Check back in a few days & I’ll share how I painted the cactus & butterfly and what fun materiel I used. Can you guess? It’s one of our favorites.

This post is part of a series of the 28 letters and includes the photos that go with the instructions listed.

Supplies

  • Recycled cardboard box
  • two different colors of recycled tissue paper,
  • fa letter print out
  • scissors
  • glue

Print out your favorite Arabic letter & cut it out. Then you will need to glue it down on inside your recycled box.

Cut out a rectangle, around the letter, from the recycled box and also the tissue paper into small rectangles.

Crumble up one of the tissue paper colors and glue all the little pieces inside the letter.

Crumb;e up the second tissue paper color and glue it around the letter.

Wait for everything to dry and now your letter is complete to add to a shelf, pin to a wall or place inside a shadow frame.

Now our letter was ready to be placed on a shelf or gifted. If you enjoyed making this letter, visit these other Arabic letter tutorials:

Be sure to stop by A Crafty Arab on Pinterest to see more activities that teach about the Arab world.

acraftyarab

I am a Libyan American who creates art to promote a positive image of Arab and Islamic culture.