‘Tis the season for an ARTvalanche of kiddy creative work to be coming home from school and daycare.*
This Christmas tree craft reuses all the kiddy artwork to create a colourful, one-of-a-kind tree.
Did somebody say Kindy Chic?
*Well that’s the case here in Australia where our school year finishes just before Christmas.
Is it the same at this time of the year in the Northern Hemisphere despite the school year not being over?
Watch how to make your own Christmas tree craft
I find it hard to part with kiddy artwork. I clearly have had to figure out strategies so as not to drown in it all.
We keep the favourite pieces. I photograph a lot of pieces with the intention of one day making a photo book (one day.)
Here are some other ways to reuse your child’s artwork.
I recommend involving your child in a discussion of what masterpieces to keep and which ones they are happy to part with. Cutting up a child’s artwork without their permission can result in a very angry artist. And, yes, I’m speaking from experience.
You will need:
Download and print your triangle template
Artwork cut into triangles
2 sheets of A2 cardboard (measuring 500mm x 650mm)
Glue sticks
Awesome Christmas playlist so you can truly rock around the Christmas tree (optional)
I’m not gonna lie. This activity requires you to do some prep beforehand.
This will make for a more enjoyable experience and also save your sanity.
You’re welcome.
Now I chose to have the children glue onto a black sheet of card. I then laid a piece of white card over the top to neaten out the look of the tree and to make the colours pop. You might like the tree on the black card alone- so don’t bother with the white cardboard. You can choose whatever colour of card you like and you don’t have to add the top layer if you don’t want to. It’s your tree!!
Print off and trace the triangle template onto some cardboard and use this as your stencil.
I started at the top of the black card, about 1.5cm from the edge and traced 2 triangle to form the apex of the tree.
Each layer down involved 6 triangles. I ended up with 4 rows of 6.
Follow the top photo to see the orientation of the triangles to achieve this look.
I then repeated this process on the white card and cut out the tree.
Following this process will leave you with a tree containing 26 triangles- the exact amount of letters in the alphabet!
Use the triangle stencil to cut 26 triangles from the piles of kiddy artwork.
I predicted that my 3.5-year-old might encounter difficulty with placing triangles in different orientations.
So I labelled each triangle on the black card with a letter.
I then coded each of the 26 triangles wit a corresponding letter. REMEMBER that the triangles are in different orientations on the tree so be mindful of this as you are cutting artworks in specific areas for specific colours.
I stuck the black card to the wall and placed the artwork triangles on side tables.
I then handed the glue sticks over to my kids and unleashed them.
If you watch the video of this process, you’ll see my 5-year-old owning this project like. a. boss.
As predicted, my 3.5-year-old encountered some frustrations early on and announced he wasn’t participating.
I offered to help him and coaxed him back into participating by asking him to match letters from the triangles to the black card. Win.
The #teachermum in me adored all the learning opportunities in this project.
Letter play, triangles that required flipping and rotating and alla the fine motor practice.
Once all the triangles were used and covered, I used my white tree window card and glued it over the top of the white card.
2 dozen eggs = 24 = a Christmas countdown calendar.
This is basically the extent of my mathematical genius.
I kid you not though when I say that one day I looked at an egg carton and thought,
“EUREKA! Perfect for a DIY Advent calendar for kids!”
You will need:
2 egg cartons
Paint
Cardboard box
Glue
Tape
Paper tube
Brown and white paper
Black marker
Washi tape
Round stickers
How to make a DIY Advent calendar for kids:
Prepare your surface and area for some kiddy painting.
(Best to have the bath ready too. If your kids are anything like mine, a bath is always the easiest option after a painting session.)
I provided 3 complementary colours and the kids painted their egg cartons.
We placed brown paper under the egg cartons and this provided a separate canvas.
It’s the time of year where we have a sharp spike in cardboard boxes thanks to Santa’s online deliveries.
Find a box that suits the size of your egg cartons.
We removed the box’s shorter flaps and then taped the longer flaps together to create the roof.
We used the brown paper that we laid under our painting as our house’s exterior.
I used a Sharpie to draw on bricks.
We cut windows out of white paper and ran washi tape along the edges.
We used old artworks for further floral decorations.
Craft glue secured the egg cartons onto the cardboard box roof.
We ran washi tape around a paper tube and taped that to the roof.
Now decide how exactly you are going to run your countdown.
Everybody does it differently!
We numbered 1 through 24 on some round gold stickers.
I asked my children if they wanted to place a sticker on the egg carton each day, to correspond with the date.
They opted to have 24 numbered stickers on the roof and will remove one each day.
So we will start at 24 and remove a sticker a day.
There are SO MANY learning opportunities with this project.
You could have your child practise their number formation and write the numbers themselves on the stickers.
You can choose to practise forward counting sequences or backward counting sequences.
Our countdown calendar usually involves different activities.
You can write these down and store them in the paper tube chimney!
My kids are excited about the possibility of things being left inside the actual house/box.
I’ll have to put my thinking hat on!
This paper poppy craft for kids involves a simple process of paint and paper for gorgeous results.
What You Will Need For This Poppy Craft for Kids:
We experimented with different kinds of paints and paper.
We used acrylic paint, liquid watercolours and and our trusty Micador Jumbo watercolour palette. (Disclaimer: this was gifted to us awhile back.)
We painted on watercolour paper, pages from the White pages, old picture books and paper towel.
The fun is in the exploring and experimenting.
How to Make Paper Poppies:
Once everything has dried, cut out circles in 3 different sizes.
This is a great project for exploring layers and comparing sizes.
Fold your circle in half, and then half again.
Make a small triangular cut into the edge of your circle.
Unfold to reveal your poppy.
We layered 3 circles on top of each other, gluing them in place.
Use a black marker to create a centre for your poppy.
You could add a brooch pin back to turn these into wearable poppies.
This is a perfect craft for Remembrance Day. Or any day, really.
Every day is a good day to discuss with children how war is not the answer to resolving our differences.
Ask me to name my favourite Eric Carle book and I’ll umm and ahh indefinitely.
Kinda like asking me to name my favourite child. (Not that I have one.)
We are massive Eric Carle fans around here, and this The Very Busy Spider craft makes use of materials from a previous Carle-inspired project.
This post contains affiliate links. Thanks for your support.
Eric Carle paints tissue paper that he then collages to create his iconic illustrations.
We still have lots of this painted tissue paper leftover and we made use of it to create these spiders.
You could of course, collage these spiders with any paper.
But there’s something special about recreating the process of one of the world’s greatest picture book creators, no?
For this The Very Busy Spider craft, you will need:
Cardboard (we reused some packaging from a delivery)
Craft glue
Paper for collage
Googly eyes
Anything extra you’d like to use for embellishments. We used paint pens and chalk pastels.
Cut out the parts of the spider and trace these parts onto thick card.
My 2 children took different paths at this point.
Mr 3 insisted on gluing all the parts together before decorating.
Miss 5 decorated all the parts and then assembled the spider.
Whatever floats your boat!
Glue your paper to your cardboard. However tickles your fancy!
I then presented paint pens and chalk pastels and prompted my children to think about whether they could use these materials to decorate their spiders.
Glue on the googly eyes and you have a very busy spider ready to spin some webs!
And CDs. Does anything scream “90s!” more than CDs?
What you will need:
Heavy paper (we used watercolour paper)
Aluminium foil
Paint (we used the IKEA Mala paints)
Old CDs
Yarn
Craft glue
I used this activity as a way to explore tracing with my preschoolers.
We traced around CDs and different-sized bowls. If you’d like to make a planet with a ring, trace around bowls that are about 3cm wider than a CD.
Cut out your circles. TIP: Cut out many circles. This printmaking technique is fun and uses a fair bit of paint. It’s great to have lots of circles on hand.
The IKEA Mala paints are perfect for this project.
Any paint that can be easily squeezed out are excellent choices.
Tear off a piece of aluminium foil.
Squeeze paints into the centre of your foil.
Place your paper rounds onto the paint and gently press from the centre out to the edges of your circle.
When it feels as though you have coated the whole piece of paper, peel away to reveal your colourful design.
This activity uses lots of paint. So you can keep transferring the paint on your foil onto paper circles.
If your painted circle has TOO MUCH paint on it, gently place another circle on top and transfer the print and paint.
This is a process where it is super fun to experiment.
If you want to hang and dangle your planets, loop some yarn around the CD.
Once your prints have dried, glue your circles onto a CD.
If you wish to make a ring for your planet, trim one of the bigger circles to fit the CD. With the leftover painted circle, create a ring.
I taped the top bit to the yarn then made a small incision in the bottom of the ring. I then slotted the CD into this incision.
Making the world an artsier, craftsier place is my Space Jam.
This post contains affiliate links. Thanks for your support.
My friend Cara from Raising Kinley is the Queen of Photo Paper Art.
I want to spend this whole introduction raving like a lunatic about how awesome and enthusiastic Cara is.
But I also don’t want to hold you back from this guest post by Cara. It is E to the PIC. (Epic for those playing along at home.)
You can read more about Cara in her Oh Creative Lady interview. And once you are done here, I urge you to run – don’t walk!- and follow her and Kinley on alla the socials!
Here are 6 of Cara and Kinley’s fave photo paper art ideas. There are another 6 ideas over on their site.
Do you have an old pack of photo paper sitting in a forgotten spot somewhere in your house? Maybe it came free with your old printer or maybe your friend handed some down to you in a box of art odds n’ ends? Or possibly you bought some with the intentions of printing your own Christmas cards and then promptly forgot about sending Christmas cards until December 23rd upon which time you shoved it in the back of your craft closet? (Just me? #goofball) Well if you do, you’ve been sitting on a creative goldmine, friend! Go dig it out, dust it off and break out the watercolors because hours of gorgeous fun are in your future.
Photo paper + watercolors have become my absolute art obsession and the combo that I am kinda-sorta-instafamous for.
It all started when I spotted a simple but magical photo paper post by the fabulous ladies of @make_art_school while doing my usual absent-minded scroll through the ol’ Instagram feed. Their stunning piece of tiny human art stopped my quick thumb dead in its tracks & instantly inspired my smock clean off. Kinley and I have tried approximately half a bazillion different photo paper art-making methods since that day and we are still 100% obsessed.
Liquid watercolors are vibrant and amazing on any canvas, but on photo paper they are next level. The glossy paper just sucks the color up instantly so each drip and brushstroke and bubble is captured like magic, and bonus it’s somehow almost impossible to get the dreaded brown kid art smearage no matter how many colors you put in front of your little human. S ounds too good to be true, right? Just wait! You are gonna be hooked, too, guaran-dang-teed.
Ready to get your own smock knocked off? Here are my top six favorite photo paper art ideas.
For each of these methods you will need:
Liquid watercolors
We’ve used homemade liquid watercolors (click here for our homemade recipe) and both Blick and Colorations brand. Whatever you’ve got will be perfect!
Jars or cups to hold your watercolors
Photo paper
Now, I should warn you that all photo paper is not created equal. The dollar store photo paper will work for experimenting and getting your process art on, but if you want your artwork to be as vibrant as the stuff you are about to scroll through, you’ll probably wanna shell out a little more (we love the HP and Canon brands) and make sure it’s glossy.
A tray or cookie sheet
Trust me. Besides being incredibly rad, photo paper art is always guaranteed to be messy!
Drips & Dots
For this method, you’ll also need:
Pipettes or eyedroppers
This is the OG photo paper art method and the simplest of them all. Use your pipettes to squirt watercolors in drops and puddles and lines however you want all over the place.
Totally random and totally awesome!
Cotton Ball Smush
For this method, you’ll also need:
Cotton balls
Pipettes or eyedroppers
Put a handful of cotton balls on your art tray bunched up together.
Squirt watercolors all over them however you would like.
Press the glossy side of the photo paper on the color-soaked cotton balls and lift a print.
You can pick up those pretty cotton balls and use them as dot-stampers on your photo paper, too, as long as you don’t mind rainbowy fingers.
Bubble Prints
For this method, you’ll also need:
Wide-mouthed cup or bowl
Water
Liquid dish soap
Pipettes or eyedroppers
Drinking straw
Fill your cup about halfway up with water and squirt a few drops of dish soap on top.
Stir the soap and water up a little with your straw and then blow until you’ve got a nice mound of bubbles popping up over the rim of your cup.
Use a pipette to gently squirt on some liquid watercolors. (If the bubbles instantly pop the second the watercolors hit them, it’s your soap. We’ve tried it with a few different brands and the best one we’ve found is Dawn. You might have to do some experimenting if that brand isn’t available in your neck of the woods.)
Quick plop a piece of photo paper on top of the colored bubbles and lift up. Gorgeous, right?
Blow more bubbles and repeat the process until your bubble art is just how you want it to be.
Resist Art
For this method, you’ll also need:
Oil pastels
Paintbrushes
Draw a picture directly on the glossy side of the photo paper using your oil pastels.
Use your paintbrush to apply liquid watercolors over the top of your drawing.
Kinley and I love to draw secret pictures in white oil pastel and then switch papers so we can surprise each other with our artwork. Rainbow is gorgeous, but neon oil pastels and black watercolors are crazy beautiful too!
Drinking straw, cut into thirds. Shorter straws are easier to blow paint with.
Pipettesor eyedroppers
Use your pipettes to squirt a few small drops of watercolors around your photo paper. Repeat again and again until you are happy with your art …or until you are completely out of breath and a little light-headed, whichever comes first.
Do you already know the joys of process art in the salad spinner? I’ll lead ya through it just in case:
Make two loops of clear tape and attach them to the back of your photo paper,
Stick the paper to the bottom of the spinner basket and set the basket on a tray.
Squirt on a few drops or squirts of watercolors. Don’t be afraid to experiment. There’s no wrong way to make spin art!
Pop the lid on the salad spinner and give it a spin.
Open it up and gasp in wonder as you behold your amazing masterpiece! Then add some more drops and keep going ‘til it’s perfect.
If you give any of these photo paper art ideas a try, be sure to tag Shannon @ohcreativeday and I @raising.kinley on social media. We would LOVE to see your creations!
‘Tis the season for an ARTvalanche of kiddy creative work to be coming home from school and daycare.*
