If you like a side serve of process art with your Valentine’s Day craft, then this is the project for you!
My kids love painting and spaghetti. What happens when you combine these two things?
A wall hanging perfect for Valentine’s Day. (That was the obvious answer, no?!)
What you will need:
Dried spaghetti
Paper
Paint (we used acrylics)
A stick
Yarn
Heavy card (like an old box)
Glue
Scissors
Decorative embellishments
How to:
You need a few kiddy artworks to cut into strips.
You can obviously go about this as you so wish.
We created an artwork with spaghetti paintbrushes.
Grab a handful of dried spaghetti and tie a rubber band around the handful about 2cm from the end.
Boil some water and soften the ends of your “paintbrush” in the water.
Once cooled, squirt some paint onto a tray and let the kids swirl their spaghetti paintbrush across the paper. Set this artwork aside to dry.
A few days later, we painted over the top of these artworks with rolling pins wrapped in yarn.
Draw a love heart onto some sturdy card. (We used a nappy box.)
Cut your artworks into strips. (Ours were about 1cm in width.)
Layer your strips across the heart. You may like to overlap the strips. Glue the strips down. Once covered, flip the cardboard heart over and trim any excess away.
You know all those sticks your kids collect at the park? (Or is that just my kids?!)
Paint a stick and embellish with whatever your heart desires- pom poms, sequins, whatever tickles your fancy!
Use a hole punch to punch a hole on each side of the heart. Thread some yarn through and secure with tape.
Hang your heart in a prominent spot. Stand back and admire the handiwork of your littles!
Truth be told, we don’t really “do” Valentine’s Day at our place.
Mr Day spins that story about “It’s just a Hallmark event….” “I don’t need a specific day to tell you that I love you…” blah blah blah.
This does not, however, stop me from jumping aboard the Valentine’s Day art bandwagon.
How are things in your world?
Over here in the Creative Day household, I’ve been trying to teach my toddler alla the Big Life Lessons.
Like the importance of replacing the lids on her markers.
We recently cleaned out the colouring tub which resembled a Marker Graveyard.
Did you know you can reuse old markers by bringing them back to life as watercolour “paint.”
How to make watercolour paint by reusing old markers
To create watercolour “paint,” simply soak your dried up markers in water.
I used old water bottles which was also a useful storage method.
Pop your dried up markers in the bottle, add water and let them soak.
The more water, the less vibrant your colours.
The longer you let the markers soak, the more vibrant the colour.
Once your paints are ready to go, here are 6 simple ideas for how to use them.
Fizzy Fun with Baking Soda and Vinegar
Anything involving an ink dropper is a sure hit round here.
In this activity, fill a tray with baking soda.
Mix the watercolours with vinegar.
The toddler worked on her fine motor skills drawing the liquid into the ink dropper and dropping it onto the baking soda.
Lots of fizzy fun.
This activity lasted 40 minutes. Which is basically 7 Light Years in Toddler Time.
Ink Dropper Splatters
Using the ink dropper and watercolour paper, you can create splatter art.
You could of course use your paint with a paintbrush.
Or you could also put your watercolours in a spray bottle, tape some watercolour paper to the fence and let the kids create some spray art in the backyard.
Watercolour and Oil
Drop watercolours onto watercolour paper.
Then drop oil onto the watercolour to see how they react.
Little Miss then experimented with dropping watercolour into the oil well.
And created her own masterpiece.
Glue, salt and watercolour
Create a design using craft glue.
Sprinkle salt over the glue. Shake off any excess salt.
Use your ink dropper (again) to drip watercolour onto the salt and watch how the watercolour runs. Mesmerising to watch.
Salt on watercolour
You could also coat your paper in watercolour and then sprinkle salt over the top of it. (You need a nice, liberal coat of watercolour.)
Once the salt has absorbed the excess watercolour, shake off your artwork and the salt will have created a pretty, textured effect.
Watercolour and Cling Wrap
Coat your watercolour paper in watercolour. Cover the paper in cling wrap and watch the rivulets of watercolour form. Leave to dry overnight.
When you remove the cling wrap, your painting will have a gentle, rippled look.
The irony is that we had so much fun with these projects, I kinda hope that the toddler leaves the lids off the markers so we can do it all again sometime.
If you like a side serve of process art with your Valentine’s Day craft, then this is the project for you!
We created an artwork with spaghetti paintbrushes.
Draw a love heart onto some sturdy card. (We used a nappy box.)
Use a hole punch to punch a hole on each side of the heart. Thread some yarn through and secure with tape.
