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.

Cotton Bud Painting

I had been meaning to try cotton bud painting for awhile. Master E is very keen on paint and this was a great way to minimise the mess while still giving him the paint experience.

I put a small amount of paint into an egg carton and added cotton buds.

Miss M was keen to get stated. The cotton buds were great as they absorbed the paint, so there were no drips or spills.

The paint went on nice and thin and made for quick drying.

Master E was painting a "Rainbow".

Some of Miss M's lovely line work.

Miss M practising her pincer grip with the cotton buds.

Master E decided some colour mixing was essential and ended up with a lovely teal, a mucky green and some grey!


We loved this way of painting and will be doing it again soon. Was fairly mess free and helped to develop fine motor skills. Another great thing was that there was no need to wash up paint. I just threw away the cotton buds and egg cartons, WIN!!

Hope you enjoy it too!