A large family, homeschooling, adoption, special needs, whatever strikes my fancy, sort of blog.

A large family, homeschooling, adoption, special needs, whatever strikes my fancy, sort of blog.

Sunday, May 1, 2016

Spring Flowers Art Project


Last summer, someone posted a link to my Facebook wall about doing fireworks paintings using empty toilet paper tubes.  This is my floral twist on that project.  This would be a great project to work on after a nature walk paying specific attention to the details on your local flowers.


You will need the following supplies (affiliate links are included for your convenience):
empty toilet paper tubes (at least one for each color flower you plan to make)
9x12" construction paper in blue
green construction paper, yarn, or pipe cleaners
scissors
glue (we used sticks, but you'll want liquid glue for yarn or chenille stems)
cotton swabs
liquid tempera paints


First, you need to cut "petals" in the TP tubes.  We've been learning about botany this semester, so we talked about how some flowers have 5 petals, some have 6, some have lots of petals.  This would be a good time to bring up the flowers you saw on your walk.


You can cut short, fat petals, or long skinny petals.  You can make the edges pointy or rounded.


This is the flower I made as an example for the kids.


I wanted some pink flowers, but the pink we have is more of a fuchsia, so I added some silver both to make it lighter, and to add a little shimmer to it.

With a sky blue background paper, you'll be able to use lots of different flower colors, even white!


I tried having the kids stamp in the paint on a paper plate, but unless you use a lot of paint, the paint starts drying out fairly rapidly.  I didn't want to be wasteful, so we ended up using a brush to quickly brush the paint onto the petals and then stamp it onto the paper.  Be sure to have the kids press each petal to the paper before lifting.


After you have your flowers painted on your paper, you end up with a fun little bouquet of cardboard flowers as "leftovers."  They're kind of cute all on their own.  You could paint the base green or wrap them in green construction paper and use them as a centerpiece or even place cards at dinner.


I had the children cut green construction paper to make stems and leaves for their flowers.  We reviewed how some plants have alternate, some have opposite, and some have whorl leaf placement.  You could also use green yarn to make stems and leaves, or even green pipe cleaners, if you prefer more texture or you run out of green construction paper.

At this point, the flower petal paint is dry, and it's time to paint the insides of the flowers.  The kids chose brown for their gold petaled flowers.  I had a heck of a time blending a good brown.  I made a lovely dark teal, though!   Eventually, we got brown, and after looking at sunflowers online, the kids dabbed brown paint into the center of the gold flowers with q-tips.  Dot dot dot dot dot!  The pink flowers got yellow centers, and a recycled milk jug cap is the perfect stamping size for this.


Happy May!  (Don't mind our photobomber.)


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10 comments:

  1. This is such a cute craft and your kids are adorable! The the face being made in the last picture. I love the picture that shows all of your table too. Our table looks like that most days also!

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    1. Eli's a pretty funny guy. :)

      The table was a Christmas present. It's from Ikea. Our former school room table was a Costco folding table with a textured plastic top. It's so nice for the kids to be able to color without getting weird bumps from the table texture! There's a half wall behind the table, which is why it looks like there's a mountain of stuff ON the table. Most of it is actually on the half wall.

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  2. Fun! What a cute spring crafting idea.

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    1. Thanks! We were away over "fireworks season" last year, so I didn't get a chance to try the original craft, but I like the way this worked out.

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  3. What a sweet craft project. I love projects using recycled materials. Thanks for sharing at the #ThisIsHowWeRoll Link Party on Organized 31.

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    1. I love your linkup! So many neat ideas. :)

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  4. Recycled materials + Creativity = amazing craft project !!! GREAT idea, Shecki!!

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    1. Thanks, Karen! Now, to figure out what to make out of all the detergent lids I keep saving! LOL! :D

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  5. I love this project! I will definitely show this to my daughter. I can see her having a blast creating flowers. Thank you for sharing.

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    1. Thank you! We'll have to try it again this summer with red, white and blue on black paper to make fireworks pictures. :)

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