Kid Crafts Magazine

Kid Crafts Magazine is the only digitally delivered magazine dedicated to children's crafting. We strive to bring you the best craft projects for younger children from throughout the Internet. This newsletter can be viewed online. Read previous issues of our newsletters located in our Newsletter Archive.

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Featured & New Crafts

A fellow kid crafter suggested that I add a theme page on painting projects, techniques, tools, etc. a couple of months ago. I finally had the time to dig in and get it done. That's why I'm calling this issue 'The Paint Issue.' You can see the new theme page here. Enjoy!

'Substitute Brush' Ideas...

Q-tips or cotton swabs
Cotton Balls
Fingers
Toes
Rags
Toothpick
Twigs or sticks
Feathers
Toothbrush
String or yarn

Printing/Stamping/Stenciling Objects

Fruit or vegetables
Corks
Cookie cutters
Wood blocks
Leaves
Textured Fabric
Lace
Doilies
Styrofoam Shapes
Body Puff
Loofa
Natural Sponges
Stamps
Stencils
Plastic lids from containers (to make circles)
Wheels from toy cars
Sponges

Other Painting Tools

Blow Paints
Squirt bottle
Eyedropper
Old or Cheap Toys

Paint Variations

Watercolor
Tempera Paint
Poster Paint
Paint Sticks
Wet Chalk
Add Water to Thin Paint
Add Flour or Starch to Thicken Paint
Add Sand
Add Glitter
Add Fake Snow
Add Dirt
Add Whole Spices (Like Cloves or Peppercorn)

Marble Painting - Cut a piece of construction paper to fit in the bottom of a pie tin, tray, or similar container. Put a couple of drops of tempera paint on the paper. Gently roll a couple of marbles in the bottom of the pan (through the paint drops) to create the painting.

Bubble Painting - Mix a little bit of tempera paint into bubble blowing mixture and put into pie tin or similar container. Have children blow bubbles with a straw and then lay paper on top of the bubbles. Make sure the child knows how to blow, not suck, so they don't get a mouth full of soapy paint.

Straw Painting - Put a couple of drops of thinned paint onto paper and give child straw to blow different patterns.

Mirror Image Painting - Fold a piece of paper in half and then open it back up. Paint some images, shapes, or just drops of paint on one side of the fold. Fold the paper back over on top of the painted side and smooth it with your hand to make sure the paint contacts the blank side. Open up the paper to reveal a mirror image. This painting technique can be used with a lot of different projects.

Paint Flicking - Cut out the top and one side of an old cardboard box to make a screen to protect the surrounding areas and lay paper in the bottom. Flick paint onto paper to make pretty patterns using an old toothbrush or a paintbrush. You can also show the child how to hit a paintbrush against a stick to flick paint on to the paper.

Spray Painting - Use old spray bottles filled with different colors of watered down paint. Use the bottles to create spray paint pictures. You can use regular sized pieces of paper or a large piece of butcher paper. A site visitor shared that she uses the reverse side of wallpaper strips with her kids. This project is best done outdoors.

Sponge Stamping - You'll need some of those cheap kitchen sponges that are really flat and dried out when you first get them. Cut out a variety of shapes before they get wet and expand. Then turn the kids loose with the sponges to create sponge stamp paintings. This also makes great wrapping paper.

Color Mixing Experiment - Use paper plate and SMALL drops of primary colors (RED ~BLUE ~ YELLOW) and mix drops together to find out what colors you can make. After this add a drop of WHITE paint to the center to see how this affects the colors and to experiment with the ranges of each color you can mix.

String Mirror Image - Fold a piece of paper in half and open it back up. Dip a piece of string or yarn in paint and lay it on one side of the fold so that a piece of unpainted string hangs over the edge. You can do this with several strings and colors, or just one. Fold the paper back over the string and hold in place while you gently pull the string out from between the folds. When all of the strings have been removed, open up the page to reveal a mirror image made with string.

Crayon Resist Painting - Use a white crayon to draw anything you want on a white piece of paper. Then paint over the crayon using thinned paint or watercolors. You can use different color crayons on different colors of paper to make a different effect.

Negative Painting - Cut a sheet of white paper and a sheet of black paper in half and then tape (or glue) them back together so that you have two sheets that are half white and half black. Give the child a both black and white paint so that they can see that black paint doesn't show up on black paper and white paint doesn't show up on white paper. This is a good learning craft. You can also take it a step further by letting them paint with many different colors so that they can see how different it looks on each color of paper.

Leaf Outline Painting - Collect leaves and arrange them on a piece of paper. Use a sponge dipped in paint to dab around the leaf edges. Carefully lift the leaves to reveal your design.