Wednesday, January 07, 2015

Winter Crafts - Snowflake Painting With Tape!

**Winter!**



I was asked by Leandra from Larabee-uk to take part in her winter theme guest blog posts so we thought we would share one of our craft time sessions to fit in with it.
Today we had a quick painting session while Bean's baby sister had her nap.
Our painting sessions tend to be short due to the crazy mess, Bean's short attention span and his obsession for both hand washing and hand prints, two things that just do not mix!
Firstly, I had a quick go at mixing a 'salt paint'. I had been told that it was easy and you just mix PVA with salt, paint on dark or coloured paper and it dries and looks like crystals. I did this and we were left with what looks like a gloopy snowball. Yes very wintery but not good for painting with, more of a snowman tumor! I wonder if it should have been white paint and the salt would make it sparkle? Or different salt?



Either way that was a massive flop so I had a little think...

Snowflake painting!
The basic snowflake paintings were easy, the first one I taped a snowflake pattern onto the page (the second one he helped).


 


We then got our favourite 'Frozen' colours out, purple sparkles, blue and silver. Bean gave them a mix (he can't have the colours separate of course, luckily this time it wasn't just brown!) and started to paint the sheet.
I then got him a piece of kitchen roll folded (cotton wool works too) and he rubbed the painting round the page revealing a 'magic snowflake' where the paint didn't take to the tape. Bean was mega impressed with this so we did this a few times on separate sheets. A huge sheet with lots of snowflakes on would have been even better! This is a really good way of introducing number or letter shapes too, tape the letters on a page and let them paint rub and reveal!


 


Next was 'snowman hand prints' and 'footprints in the snow', every paint session ends with hands and feet and usually a quick run to the bath.
We both enjoyed ourselves and the temperature in our conservatory made it feel like we really were playing with ice!
Brrr.