Easter Fun ~ Print Making

I have been hanging on to some Styrofoam meat trays for ages waiting for the right activity to pop into my head. Finally it did and today we made some Easter Egg Prints using the meat trays.

Here is what you need

Meat trays (or any clean stryofoam tray)
Skewers
Scissors
Paint
Paintbrushes or Rollers
Paper or Card to print onto

First trim the edges off the tray so you have a flat surface to work with. I then drew some egg shapes and cut them out with scissors, I had large trays and could fit two eggs per tray.

Using a skewer draw your design.

The harder you press the deeper the lines and better the print. (Be sure not to press too hard though, as you will end up with a broken tray!)

Once we were happy with the design we painted over the egg shape using thick paint brushes.

Flipped our egg over and pressed it down on to the cardboard. Making sure to press all over the egg to leave the best print.

We found that less paint left clearer prints, more just went a bit messy.

Master E, working on his print collection.

Some of the finished prints.


We were really happy with how these worked and were super easy. We are planning on cutting them out and turning them into Easter Cards soon!

Printing with Leaves and some simple Colour Mixing

We had a visit to our local community farm this week where we came across some amazing leaves. I love crafting with natural items and things that don't cost too much (especially when you are crafting every other day!). So today we did some leaf printing, it is super easy and very effective.

Here is what we started with, large leaves (I have no idea what type they are, but they had predominant veins which were great for printing), paint brushes, A3 paper (we just used copy paper) and poster paint in primary colours.

We painted the leaves vein side up using paint brushes and primary coloured paints.

Turned the leaves over and pressed them down onto the paper like a stamp to create the prints. 

Miss M making her first print.

Miss L covering her leaf with plenty of paint ready to print.

Master J very meticulous with the covering of his leaf.

Miss A being sure to press her leaf down firmly.

Miss L sneaky a peak at her print.

Miss A creating a great print.

Sticking to the primary colours made for lots of talk about colour mixing, we ended up with some purple, green and orange all made by experimenting!

Loving Master J's concentrating tongue. While he mixes up some green.

Master E working on some colour mixing and working out the red and yellow make orange.

Miss G working out that blue and yellow make green.

Miss O mixing up some purple.

One of our very clear prints.

A gorgeous example of some overlapping leaf printing, using yellow and blue to create green.



These prints turned out really well and look great. It was very simple and relatively mess free considering it was paint! We had lots of great discussions about colour mixing and the kids very proud of their works of art.
I think we will be on the hunt for some more leaves to try soon.

Print Making with Cardboard Tubes

I had been collecting the cardboard tubes from inside paper towel for some time. Today we used them to do some printing which was very cost effective, lots of fun and made brilliant results. I came across this idea from a great blog Getting Messy With Miss Jessi.

I started by cutting the tubes into halves then cutting slits approx 3cm up the side, folding back the tabs and then cutting a pattern into each tab. We had flowers, stars and suns.

Miss G very busy printing some yellow flowers.

Master E printing some blue flowers.

And as always we end up with some budding artists who can't help but paint their hands!
Cheeky Miss L showing off her handy work!

Miss A printing away.

Some of the finished work.

Another finished piece. 

We didn't really get the hang of using the tubes as stamps and ended up with some lovely abstract art.  This activity was a huge hit and many of our budding artists went back for more paper. Think we will  be doing this one again soon!

Father's Day Wall Hangings

With Father's Day only a few days away it was time to get crafting. I came across this super cute Finger Print Tree printable from Lovely Living. It was perfect for working with toddlers. We printed off numerous copies and let the kids loose with paint pads.
The paint pads were great for this activity as they are easy to get a small amount of paint on the fingertips and add them to the tree to create the leaves.
Once the children had finished adding leaves to their tree we backed them onto some coloured paper and laminated them.
We also used a hole punch to punch two holes at the top and thread through a pipecleaner to make our wall hangings.
Too Easy and Super Cute!

Miss L, enjoying dipping her fingers in the paint.

Master J, carefully deciding where each print should go.

Miss M, painting with her whole hand!

Master S, getting right into his art.

Doesn't take much for Miss L and Miss M to get into the whole hand painting.

Miss A, also having a go at the whole hand experience!

One of the finished works of art, all ready to give Daddy on Sunday.

 Happy Father's Day to all the Daddy's from Toddler Time, we hope you enjoy your special day!