This week the girls and I created some fun, personalized art
to hang in their rooms. We were inspired by a fun book we took out from the
library called, Swatch: The Girl Who Loved Color by Julia Denos. Not only is it beautifully illustrated
with lots of color, but the main character Swatch reminds me of my girls. Swatch is a wild girl who tames wild colors and by the end of the book she has made them
all her friends. My little artists have yet to meet a color they don’t like and can't make their own.
I am excited by how this project, and our activity, pairs
perfectly with this book! We decided to skip the predictable square canvas, and opted for the letter shaped canvas. It helps that we
happened to find these letter shaped canvas’ on sale at Michael’s craft store.
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Materials:
- Dark color tissue paper (the darker colors “bleed” more)
- Scissors
- Spray bottle full of water
- Canvas
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Start by snipping shapes from the tissue paper. We made
squares and triangles and made individual piles of colors to make it easier for each
kid to take what they needed.
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Next,, spray your canvas with water and begin layering your
tissue paper shapes randomly onto the canvas. You can make new colors by layering
several colors together. Your paper should stick to the canvas right away,
but if it dries quickly just give it another spritz of water.
Once you have all your pieces on your canvas, spritz water
over the entire canvas one final time.
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Allow to dry for 20 minutes before removing the tissue
paper. It should peel off cleanly without sticking. Pull off a small piece to check the color first. If it
isn’t as bold as you’d like, spritz again and wait another 10 minutes. Be warned: your fingers may get a little stained from the color.
While we waited for the water to dry we read about Swatch
and talked about our favorite colors. Then we put on some wild music and danced around the living room with rainbow colored dance streamers. My girls felt like Swatch taming their colors.
Our final product was more pastel in color but my girls
liked it! Now to find just the right spot to hang their new art in their rooms.
The entire project cost around $10 to make. We stacked some
coupons on those sale prices at Michael's and had plenty of tissue paper on hand. Now we have some really unique art to enjoy, and the girls had fun playing with colors!
The Whatever Mom is a full-time wife and twin mama living on coffee and wine. She enjoys the pure rush of cleaning the BIG potty between loads of laundry. It is her dream that moms everywhere accept and embrace the Whatever Mom philosophy which can be found here. You can also find her musings and popular shares on Facebook and Twitter. Stay up to date with her creative ideas and outings on Pinterest.
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