Crafty Time with Little Ones

With fall quickly approaching a girlfriend and I decided we wanted to do a fun craft project with our little ones.  After just a few minutes on Pinterest my head was full of ideas.  So many cute craft projects and they all make it look so fun and easy.  The part that has me laughing out loud however is this.  They either neglected to mention the mess that comes with the craft project or our kiddos are superstars at going above and beyond.

This is how our project went.

We gathered the supplies.  Paint, paper, potatoes, tissue paper, glue sticks, wet wipes, and 3 of the cutest kids around.

First order of business is cutting the potato into the shape of a leaf.  Ha!  It looked so easy in the picture.  It wasn't.  Our "leaves" were more like weird shaped stars and pointy ovals than leaves but we press on.

It's time to head outside.  It would have been cooler and perhaps more comfortable to stay inside for craft time but, we know our kids and paint was coming up next.

I start with the oldest and paint his hand and arm then show him how to press it onto the paper thus making a tree. It worked! In fact it worked so well he decided doing hand prints on the paper was way more fun than using the funny leaf shaped potato stamp.  Zoe on the other hand was not letting the paint anywhere near her hand.  I had to sacrifice my own hand for her tree but at least she caught on and mastered the potato stamp.  As for child #3, he hand printed, leaf printed and had a grand time smearing paint everywhere!

Onto the next phase.  Tissue paper and glue sticks.  Now that the kids know how to make the tree it's time for tissue paper leaves.  We have a huge assortment of tissue paper in fall colors (at least 5 times more than we needed) and let them go wild attaching the "leaves" to the trees. 

When all was said and done. We had a bite taken out of the raw potato stamp, and another out of a glue stick, paint on hands, feet, arms, legs, faces, and hair. We had a wall covered in glue, a sliding glass door with green, orange, and yellow paint on it.  We had squares of tissue paper and wet wipes spread all over the patio.  But best of all we had 3 of the cutest kids ever with their fall craft projects drying in the breeze.