Does the idea of painting with kids sound overwhelming or intimidating? Let’s fix that. It’s time to bring out Fun Art Mom and thrill your kids with an easy win paint project. Fun Art Mom lets kids do paint projects, but she’s also smart about it. She knows her limits (it’s thirty minutes or so) and likes materials that she can throw into her Instacart or Amazon order. She considers copy paper an art supply and she’s a connoisseur of easy wins.
This craft is considered “process art,” which means it’s all about the experience. If you have artistic children, you know that this kind of thing really fills their tank.
You will need:
- Citrus fruit
- Paints
- Paper plates
- Copy paper
- An old sheet
To make your stamps, slice your citrus fruits in half. Having an assortment is nice for size variation, but you can use anything you have on hand.
The stamps work best when you can let them dry out for a day or so and remove some of the pulp. It makes a more defined pattern. (My children enjoyed painting with both dried and fresh.)
Next, get out some paper plates and put some bright, citrusy paint on them.
Paper plates are one of my favorite hacks for paint projects because you can toss the whole thing in the trash when it’s over. No messy clean-up or paint-splattered sink! As for paint, Crayola has a great washable tempura that has never let me down and lasts forever. (You can buy it in big bottles here.)
When you’re ready to paint, the best set-up is to lay an old sheet over the table. We have some vintage king-sized sheets we got at the thrift store. It’s my preferred method of paint control because you can gather up the sheet and take it right to the washing machine in one contained piece. I also sometimes use watercolor boards which was an investment, but do catch most of the mess. (I bought mine here.)
You can use any kind of paper, but plain white copy paper is what we had, so that’s what we used!
Now it’s time to play! Let kids stamp their papers in different patterns. We discovered that the stamps worked best when we spread the paint on with fingers or brush rather than dipping them in face down.
Letting our kids make paint messes in the midst of our already messy lives isn’t always the easiest thing to do. (How can I put this delicately? It can be a dumpster fire.) But sometimes we embrace the chaos and do the best we can to contain the viral spread of orange paint to bring a few moments of joy and wonder into our homes.
As we invest in these experiences, our home will become the place where our children think, create, and take risks.
And if your citrus stamps look absolutely nothing like the pictures in this tutorial, hang them up proudly and then go have an iced coffee on the deck. Fun Art Mom has accomplished her mission.
If you liked this, I’d love for you to share it on Facebook or Instagram, or save it to your Pinterest boards for later. You can read more homeschool project tutorials here.
To see all of my homeschooling posts in one spot, click here. For more projects, subscribe to Wild and Free monthly bundles where I share homeschool tutorials regularly.
You can also find more of my handcrafts and projects in the following books by Harper Collins:
Wild and Free Handcrafts: 32 Activities to Build Confidence, Creativity and Skill
