Art Activities to Try - Blowing colour bubbles, leaf art, Harold’s Purple Crayons, transfer sheets & DIY stickers.

Want to see some of the art and craft activities we've tried this week? These are all a little bit different. Pasting leaves and blowing colour bubbles could be enjoyed by toddlers (from around 18 months). While making stickers or using transfer paper is best suited to preschool children and could be enjoyed by children much older! Let's take a look!

Leaf art - we've presented some collected leaves, paste, cardboard, scissors, and Look What I Did with a Leaf by Morteza E. Sohi (UK here)(worldwide here). 

We've used Look What I Did with a Leaf to inspire us and to give us ideas on ways to create with leaves, we could also use Leaf Man or Red Leaf, Yellow Leaf. Of course, you do not need a book to lead this activity, but it can help to ignite interest or spark the child's imagination. 

Below is a similar activity by Shajara Montessori using Leaf Man. 

 

Flower crowns - for the last couple of years, we've made these flower crowns as part of our playgroup Spring celebrations. An older child could help to make the yarn crown. The children can help to collect the flowers. Then the children can thread the flowers into the yarn crown.

Yes, to practical fine motor skill work. Yes, to seasonal arts and crafts.

More threading!!

We can also add scissors for the child to collect the flowers and also to trim the stems. 

The children can then wear their crowns! ❤️🌸🌺🌼

Harold and the Purple Crayon by Crockett Johnson (UK here)(worldwide here) is a classic, but it is new to us. I love children's picture books, and this is fantastically inspiring for creating line drawings. I've presented Harold and the Purple Crayon with a range of purple crayons. Another idea is to present it with a range of art materials like Spramani has done below.

We read the book together, and I provide space and time for drawing. 

My child loves to draw, so this was an instant hit, and he drew parts of the story.

Blowing colour bubbles - this activity deserves its own blog post!! It is really messy, but my children love it. We use small bottles of bubble mixture with a wand and put a few drops of food colouring in each bottle.  I match the colour of the bottle to the food colouring/bubble colour, but this isn't essential. The child blows the bubbles on the paper, or in the paper's general direction. As the bubbles burst, they leave a coloured outline. 

Yes, really messy but really fun. Do this activity outside, as the bubbles can blow around a bit, especially if you are doing this with young children who can get excited by all the coloured bubbles. 

So colourful! We used watercolour paper, but use what you have.

DIY stickers - using sticker paper, scissors and coloured card. I invited the child to draw on the sticker paper, cut out the drawings and then use the stickers wherever they like, or on the coloured card. We did this activity in the evening, and I helped with the cutting, so I don't have a lot of images to show. 

We used photo sticker paper because that's what we already had at home, but we could also use sticker paper used to make labels. Our photo sticker paper was glossy, so we used Sharpies, but if using matt sticker paper, most markers should be ok. 

My child drew his favourite characters on the sticker paper, I cut most of them out, and he put them on paper to make some scenes. It's a fun way of exploring different ways of creating art and using different materials. I love how the stickers pop against the colour card. 

Transfer paper - to teach my child how to use transfer paper, I initially set out his activity with one sheet of graphite transfer paper, a plain white sheet of paper and a pencil. He simply drew on top of the transfer paper and watched his drawing appear on the white sheet of paper underneath. 

Once he worked out how to use the transfer paper, I printed out a character he wanted to draw. I put the printout of the character on top of the transfer paper, with a plain white sheet of paper underneath. I used some washi tape to tape the papers to the table. 

Then the child can draw over the character or whatever image they wish to draw and see how it transfers underneath. I agree that children should learn their own drawing techniques; however, using transfer paper is a legitimate art technique we can show children when we feel they are ready. 

The child can then fill in their character or add to it. As my child is still learning how to use the transfer paper, I assisted with this activity throughout. 

This post includes images embedded from Instagram, if you are reading this via email or via a blog reader, you may not be able to view all images. To read this post in full please click here. 

This post includes affiliate links. Thank you so much for your support.