Sunday, April 22, 2012

Mother's Day Craft for Preschoolers


As a rule, I only do crafts if they are:

1.  Easy

    AND

2.  Cheap

However, Mother's Day is different and the craft I chose was frankly neither easy or cheap but it really wasn't that bad, so if you are looking for something and aren't naturally creative, this craft is totally do-able!  I thought I would go ahead and post to give everyone time before Mother's Day.  Plus, it turned out so nice that I was glad I branched out for my wonderful Mommy and Mother-in-Law.  Here was my criteria: I knew that I wanted the kids to help and I wanted to make a canvas.  Lastly, I wanted to incorporate letters into the final design, so here is what I came up with. 

craft, mother's day, canvas, letters on canvas

For this project, we had to buy the canvas, but we had everything else at home.  First we dyed pasta.  I put some rubbing alcohol in a baggie with some food coloring, then added pasta to it and let it sit for awhile before putting it on paper towels to dry.  Take note that food coloring stains.  It especially stains skin.  Not that I know that from personal experience or anything.  Let's just say that before I got smart with the baggie on this, I tried using a small bowl and let my 2 year old "help" me with it.  We both had red hands for several days.  It was a little disturbing for strangers to see our blood-red hands.


ingredients for dying pasta

Here is the finished pasta.  We did orange, green, and purple (mixed red and blue of course)

dyed pasta, preschooler, toddler, kids, child, craft

Then we went outside and gathered some sticks.  The kids really loved this part and it was a great way to keep kids busy, so while they did this, I used a glue gun to affix the sticks to the canvas.  This tree pasta art was inspired by a post from Maria over at Mama Mia's Heart 2 Heart.   She is very crafty, you should check her out!

sticks for nature craft for preschoolers, letter practice
After that, I had Munchkin Girl help me pick out stickers that said, "I Love Nanny". 

Then, she painted green grass all over the letters.  I drew a rough line for her so she knew to keep the paint under the trees.  She enjoyed the challenge of this.

mother's day craft, painting for kids

Finally, the pasta was dry so she used glue to get it on the canvas for the "leaves". 

glue, kids, preschooler craft,
After everything dried, we took off the stickers and voila!  Suddenly the letters re-appeared!  It was a great way to reinforce learning letters.  I have to say that I was a little sad to give this masterpiece away!  And I have to admit that Father's Day will likely not be so extravagant.  I vastly prefer cheap, easy crafts, but this was a fun challenge for all of us!



Happy Early Mother's Day to all you wonderful Moms out there!  You inspire me daily!




One quick note: Will you do me a favor?  I am learning more about Google and apparently it helps them if you tell them what you like.  That way, when people search for things like crafts for kids, etc., they are more likely to find my posts.  Soooo...if you liked this post and think others might like it, click the button below that looks like this.  You are basically "recommending" this for Google.  It really helps me too!
why i love google+, why you should join google+, how google plus works


Did you enjoy my post?  I'm currently ranked #2!  I can't believe it!  Don't forget to vote for me by clicking the banner below.  You can also enter your email address below to receive all my updates!  I really appreciate your support!!

Top Mommy Blogs - Mom Blog Directory

Want to see all my posts?  Put your email address here to become a subscriber!

Enter your email address:
Best Blogger Tips
  • Share On Facebook
  • Digg This Post
  • Stumble This Post
  • Tweet This Post
  • Save Tis Post To Delicious
  • Float This Post
  • Share On Reddit
  • Bookmark On Technorati
Blog Gadgets

6 comments:

  1. Wow. So cool. Love the idea of using stickers for stencils.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Looks like a lot of work, but I love the results. :)

    ReplyDelete
  3. I am sure Nanny will love it! Beautiful!

    ReplyDelete
  4. You know what would be awesome crafts to do on airplane and crafts to do while traveling.....I had nightmare trip to wedding I attended and I think if I hd crafts to keep the little one busy she sould have not been so out of it and cranky. There is only so much stickers and coloring you can do on a plane :0)

    ReplyDelete
  5. Thanks for the mention Katie.. This turned out so cute and what a great idea for Mother's Day!! Hmmm... I might turn ours into a present for Grandma :)

    ReplyDelete
  6. I enjoyed the photos of the mothers day cards. They are beautiful!

    ReplyDelete