Updated February 2024

There are lots of ways to make paper flowers, but this version is fun, inexpensive and easy enough for toddlers and preschoolers to participate in the process.

And all you’ll need for this project are a few craft materials and some recycled cardboard egg cartons.

How to Make Paper Flowers

MATERIALS

• egg cartons
• pipe cleaners
• tissue paper (cut into circles)
• paint
• glue

We love making these flowers as a gift for teachers. They’re so cheerful and will last forever!

More Flower Activities for Kids

• 11 Flower Crafts for Kids
• How to Make Flags with Flower Pounding
• How to Do Flower Printing
• How to Make Flowers with Paper Plates
• How to Make Paper Flower Crowns

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Updated March 2024

Watercolor doodle flowers are a fun and relaxing watercolor art activity for kids! We think these are great to create alone or with family & friends winding down together.

Here at The Artful Parent, we value process art (open-ended activities that allow kids to explore through art). This activity fits the bill as each child’s artwork will look different. And it’s a great one to revisit over and over again.

If you’re looking for more awesome watercolor activities for kids, try 12 Awesome Watercolor Art Activities for Kids.

How to Paint Watercolor Flowers

MATERIALS

• Watercolor paint palette
• Brushes and water
• Paper
• Glue
• Crayons, oil pastels or colored pencils (for added embellishments)

Now don’t let the fun stop here! Below are a few art ideas we think your kids will enjoy. If you try one, please tag us on Instagram (#theartfulparent). We really enjoy seeing your family’s arts & crafts projects!

More Watercolor Painting Ideas for Kids

• How to Make Giant 3D Watercolor Flowers with Paper Plates
• Create Gorgeous & Abstract Scribble Drawings with Watercolors
• DIY Geometric Watercolor Art with the Saran Wrap Technique
• Shadow Art for Kids: Tracing the Light
• Glue Art on Canvas with Watercolors

Want even more creative ideas?

Check out our Spring Creativity pack!

Let creativity blossom with this fun bundle of art activities perfect for Spring!! This 40-page printable eBook is full of coloring pages, drawing prompts, games, and more!

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Updated March 2024

We love this easy “stained-glass” front door!

This one is made with contact paper and flower petals, and it is the perfect spring flower craft.

Windows, either on their own, or in a door, is our big spot for displaying seasonal changes in art and decoration. During the fall, we use colorful leaves to make a fall leaves stained-glass window, during the winter, we decorate our windows with paper snowflakes, and in February, we hang painted hearts!

But decorating our windows during springtime might be our favorite; these flower stained-glass windows are so gorgeous!

How to Make a Flower Stained-Glass Window

MATERIALS

• Transparent contact paper
• Flowers and leaves

This is such a perfect way to bring the beautiful colors of spring into your home.

And the best part of this stained-glass door is that you can recreate it any time of year! Maybe in a week or two when these flowers fade, you can create some new flower designs.

More Spring Flower Crafts for Kids

• 12 Flower Crafts for Kids
• A Flower Suncatcher Craft for Kids
• How to Make Paper Flower Crowns
• How to Make Flower Flags with Flower Pounding
• Make A Magical 3D Nature Suncatcher from A Cardboard Box
• How to do Flower Printing with Kids

Want even more creative ideas?

Check out our Spring Creativity pack!

Let creativity blossom with this fun bundle of art activities perfect for Spring!! This 40-page printable eBook is full of coloring pages, drawing prompts, games, and more!

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Updated April 2023

Pink frosting, rainbow sprinkles, dulce de leche filling, chocolate ganache…yum! Did I make you hungry? I mean who doesn’t love donuts, right?  

Imagine how excited the children from my after school art class were when I walked into the classroom with a box of fresh donuts. They were like “what??? Do we get to eat these?” And I said, “Even better! You get to draw them!”

This is such a fun drawing activity and I bet you will love setting it up for your kids. To get them in the food drawing mojo you can first show them some of Wayne Thiebaud’s colorful paintings of pastries and cakes.  These are so vivid and rich in color and texture; they will serve as a great inspiration.

Obviously, I told the children from my class they could eat the donuts once they were done. This made it even more motivating!

Drawing Donuts for Kids

MATERIALS

• Donuts
• Black Sharpies
• Watercolor paper or any heavy weight paper
• Acrylics
• Brushes
• Palette
• Jar with water
• Paper towel

Some of the kids might enjoy being as true and accurate to the original donut(s) as possible but others might prefer a little improvisation or variation in shapes and colors. That’s okay, too.

The most important thing is for the kids to enjoy the process of drawing from observation rather than the result.  And of course, close up with the cherry on the pie…let them choose a donut to enjoy!

More Drawing Ideas for Kids

• Observational Drawing for Kids
• Drawing Vegetables: Above & Below in the Garden
• How to Make Frida Kahlo Portraits for Kids
• How to Play the Exquisite Corpse Game
• How to Draw Feathers for Kids
• Fun & Creative Drawing Ideas for Kids (+ FREE Printable!)

Does your child want to explore the world of drawing and expand their skills? Check out our three-part Drawing Skills Master Class for kids! Your child can learn to draw at home with 3 unique modules: Line & Shape, Light & Shadow, and Perspective. With at-home video lessons and easy-to-follow printable workbooks, your child will build skills and confidence as they learn to draw!

SHOP NOW

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Updated April 2023

I wanted to do a Frida Kahlo inspired project for some time now since I really admire her work, as well as her husband’s, Diego Rivera.

Frida’s portraits, inspired by nature and artifacts of Mexico, are so powerful and expressive in many ways. They explore controversial issues such as: identity, class, gender and race, among others.

She constantly included autobiographical elements in her work,  combining fantasy with realism in a very unique way.

After reading a short book about Frida’s life and sharing with the children some of her most known artwork, we entered into a conversation of identity.

What makes you YOU? What defines you as a person? What are your likes and dislikes? Your thoughts? Your fantasies?

It was so interesting to listen to the children speak and share their ideas and interpretations on these open-ended questions.  We then proceeded to start working on our Frida portraits with that in our minds, and begin headpieces that identified each and every child.

Frida Kahlo Portraits for Kids

MATERIALS

• Black Sharpie
• Frida’s face printout
• Colored Sharpies
• Transparency film
• White cardboard paper (we used 12 x 18 in)
• Chalk markers (optional)
• Washi tape

And that’s it! You can frame these or just tape to the wall! They will be so fun, colorful, playful and for sure an inspiring way to learn about the life and work of artist Frida Kahlo.

More Drawing Ideas for Kids

• 5 After School Art Invitations for Kids
• Observational Donut Drawing for Kids
• Feather Art in a Box
• 16 Drawing Printable Art Activities for Kids
• How to Draw Abstract Self Portraits for Kids
• The BEST Art Supplies for Drawing

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Updated July 2023

Watercolor paints are one of our favorite art materials partly because of how adaptable they are. There are so many techniques to try and so many different ways to use them.

Watercolor resist art activities might just be our favorite way to use watercolors, though.

Here are five different watercolor resist techniques and quite a few different watercolor resist art activities to try! And if you are looking for our top picks for watercolor paints, be sure to visit our list of the best paints for kids!

5 Watercolor Resist Techniques

1. Watercolor Resist with Crayons and Oil Pastels

This is the technique that we use the most often, because it’s the easiest, quickest, and most adaptable. Simply draw on paper with crayons or oil pastels, and then paint over with watercolors and watch as the paint resists the wax!

2. Watercolor Resist with Melted Crayons

This technique takes the wax resist a step further by using a warm surface to melt the crayons first. The results are gorgeous! You can do this on warm canvases, wooden blocks, or even Easter eggs!

3. Sticker & Tape Resist Art

All kids love tape and stickers, so this watercolor resist technique is lots of fun. Use tape or stickers (or both!) to create an image, paint over the entire page, then remove the stickers to reveal a lovely silhouette! We love this technique to make starry skies!

4. Glue Resist Art

Glue is so much fun to squeeze out as you draw pictures with it! And it resists the watercolor paint remarkably well. You can do this with white glue or dye your glue black to make a stained-glass effect!

5. Rubbing Alcohol Resist

We don’t use this technique as much as the others, but rubbing alcohol has such a dramatic effect on the wet watercolor paint, repelling it and leaving a perfect, lighter circle wherever we drop it. It’s mesmerizing!

How about you? What are your favorite watercolor resist techniques?

More Watercolor Art Activities for Kids

• 3 Space Art Projects for Kids (with OOLY)
• 7 Watercolor Techniques for Kids: Fun Ways to Use Watercolor Paint
• 11 Fun Watercolor Ideas for Kids
• Blow Painting with Straws
• 12 Watercolor Art Ideas for Kids (with a Printable Guide!)
• How to Make Geometric Watercolor Art

Want even more creative ideas?

Check out our Artful Parent Starter Pack!

Engage your kids through art and creativity with this printable booklet where you’ll find all of our best tips, tricks, and ideas for getting started on your artful parenting journey!

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Updated April 2023

We’ve dyed pasta a few times now and have used it to make pasta necklaces, pipe cleaner caterpillars, and pasta collages. We also love using it as a poke-in with playdough. But there are so many more ways to use dyed pasta!

First, though, you must dye your pasta, which is super simple.

Now you’re ready to use the colored pasta for kids art activities!

Now that you have your pasta dyed, here’s a video showing Pasta Arts and Crafts in action! And don’t forget to scroll down to get more ideas.

Pasta Art Activities for Kids

Pasta Sculptures

Use the air dry clay as the base of your sculpture and poke pipe cleaners and/or dowels in the clay. String with pasta beads. Add additional pipe cleaners and pasta as desired until the sculpture is complete. Display your piece of 3D art somewhere special!

MATERIALS

• Colored pasta shapes
• Air dry clay (we used Sculpt-It, but Crayola air dry clay would work, too)
• Pipecleaners
• Small wood dowels (optional)

Pasta Donuts

Press small colored pieces of pasta into a round piece of air dry clay to make a donut! Or a pizza, or a little person!

MATERIALS

• Colored pasta shapes
• Air dry clay

Pasta Mandala Collage

Glue the colored pasta shapes on the paper plate or round piece of cardstock in a radiating mandala design. You can also make a face collage, or any other pasta design you like.

MATERIALS

• Colored pasta shapes
• Sturdy paper plates or cardstock
• Glue

Pasta Jewelry

You can string your dyed pasta onto yarn or pipe cleaners to make bracelets or necklaces!

And you can, of course, use the pasta shapes with pipe cleaners, threading them on for sculptures, spirals, or even letters.

MATERIALS

• Colored pasta shapes
• Pipecleaners
• Yarn

Now that you’re excited about the potential of pasta, check out some of these other arts and crafts projects from the Rockin’ Art Moms macaroni challenge!

More Pasta Art Activities for Kids

• Pasta Drawing Prompts (on Picklebums)
• Pine Cone and Pasta Art Assemblage (on Art Bar Blog)
• Dyed Pasta Mosaic Art (on Buggy and Buddy)
• Modern Macaroni Masterpiece (on Handmakery)
• Macaroni Mosaics (on Craft Whack)
• Macaroni Pom Pom Necklace (on Willowday)
• Pasta Sculptures with Preschoolers (on Meri Cherry Blog)
• Frames Decorated with Pasta (on Pink Stripey Socks)
• Pasta Stained Glass (on Babble Dabble Do)
• Spaghetti Tower Marshmallow Challenge (on Tinkerlab)

More Crafts for Kids

• How to Dye Pasta for Crafts
• 11 Craft Ideas for Toddlers
• Craft Ideas for Kids that are Perfect for Pretend Play
• Toothpick Sculptures for Kids
• 13 Easy Art and Craft Activities for Transitions
• 11 Creative Activities for Kids

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Updated June 2023

For those of you who know me, or have been following me for some time now on social media, you know I can embrace a good mess.

I like to foster opportunities for children to get messy and explore.

But, hey, that doesn’t mean I’ve always been comfortable around a messy situation with my children or in my classes. Let’s say my love for “messy play” was more of an acquired taste, kind of like sushi. What I mean is I was not born being a messy play ambassador!

And as a matter of fact, there are still times in which I just don’t feel like it, and on those days, I choose to set out other art invitations for kids to create and play with that are a bit more contained.

I often get asked for activity ideas that don’t involve paint or the possibility of being in one of those messy/sticky/gooey situations (where you end up spending more time cleaning up) than your kids spend doing the actual activity.

I always encourage parents and caregivers to let kids get messy and explore all kinds of textures freely. By freely I mean without an adult ready with ten wipes in hand! Although I know there are times where you just want an easy clean-up kind of activity–and that’s perfectly fine, I get it.

There is a long list of low-mess creative activities for kids that I have done many times with my own children and in my classes. Today I am going to share five of my top favorites.  I really hope you give these a try!

Creative Activities for Toddlers

1. Water Play

What kid doesn’t love water play? This is one of my favorite creative activities for kids of all times, because it’s so simple to set up and clean up is easy breezy.

I present water play in many different ways, but I have just one WARNING: always place a couple of towels or absorbent drop cloths underneath your station to prevent water from going everywhere.

I suggest using a big plastic box for the water (no need to add a lot of water, about an inch is more than enough).  Then bring in some plastic food, little bowls, plastic animals, dolls, brushes, etc. Then add a few drops of shampoo to make some foam and let them wash, wash, wash.

A good tip is placing a couple of extra plastic boxes you may have around the house next to the larger one, so spills are always contained. Then kids can work on transferring the water from one box to the other, which is always engaging for younger children.

2. Incredible Foam

This is a weird yet fun supply you can get on Amazon. We love it. It’s a perfect mix between, slime, clay and styrofoam but very low mess.

Remember, the plastic box is your best friend.  Always use it; it’s so great to contain everything. And keep reinforcing with children that it all must stay INSIDE the box. They will get it. Eventually.

Place the foam inside a box next to some cars, trucks and craft sticks or any other similar toy you may have on hand.

Let kids explore this great sensory material. It’s sticky, yet it won’t stick to surfaces or clothing permanently, and it’s very easy to clean because it all just comes together super fast. Plus, it never dries out, so you can use it over and over again and in endless ways.

3. Playdough

Always a favorite. Always a crowd pleaser, at all ages.  This is a top one on my list, because I use it constantly and in so many different manners.

It’s a really wonderful supply that won’t stain or stick, and is so versatile and open-ended.

Set it out with some uncooked pasta or with some animals and loose parts. Then watch the magic of child-led play happen.  They will build with it, they will cook, they will dress their animals, they will use it to glue parts together; the list goes on.

Most importantly, they will be engaged for a decent amount of time, and you will be able to enjoy a cup of coffee or do that laundry load you’ve had on hold for days!

4. Sticky Wall

This is a very low-mess activity and very simple to set up. And did I mention, so much fun?

Buy a roll of contact paper and tape it to the wall sticky side up. After you tape it remove the protective paper and bring in some felt pieces, tissue paper, feathers, foam shapes, or just about anything you may have around that can stick to the paper.

Let the kids get busy arranging the shapes on the sticky paper, then removing them, then adding them again and so on.  This is so great for those hand-eye coordination skills!

5. Tempera Sticks

Paint sticks are the best! If you haven’t been introduced to these yet you are going to love them. 

They are as wonderful and vibrant as tempera paint, but they act kind of like a marker (but much better); plus they dry super fast!

Set these out with a large cardboard piece on the floor. Or sometimes I like to tape paper to the wall and invite the kids to use them this way.

Not much setup or cleanup needed for this one. Easy and fun!

These are just a few of my favorite low-mess creative activities for kids! I hope you give them a try with your kiddos. I promise they will enjoy them and you won’t have to mop or clean much once they are done. Win win!

MORE Creative Activities for Toddlers

• 7 Tips for Doing Art with Toddlers
• 11 Best Art Materials for Toddlers
• Easy Yarn Suncatchers for Kids
• 5 BEST Toddler Art Activities
• 7 Simple Art Activities for Toddlers

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Updated July 2023

Art games are the best. They are fun, they are creative and connecting, but they are also easy to fit in whenever and wherever.

So whether you are waiting for food at restaurants, sitting in the doctor’s office, or on a long road trip, art games are a must have.

Here are a few of our favorite kids’ art games.

Drawing Games for Kids

1. Back-and-Forth Drawing Game for Kids

Take turns adding to a collaborative drawing. This is one of our favorite art games for restaurants and waiting rooms.

We also do a version of this game with mandalas.

2. The Scribble Drawing Game

Players use a quick scribble as a drawing prompt. Does the scribble remind you of a duck, a face, a castle? This is our other favorite drawing game for restaurants and waiting rooms.

3. The Exquisite Corpse Drawing Game

People take turns drawing sections of a human body, passing the covered drawing to the next person, and adding to the next drawing. A great game for a group of family and friends that works well with mixed ages.

4. Simon Says, Draw!

A fun, interactive drawing activity for kids and families. Simon says, “draw circles,” and the artists each draw circles. Simon also says things like, “trade pastels,” “draw dots,” and “draw a face.”

We also play a version of this with autumn leaves in the fall.

5. A Quiet-Time Art Game for Children

A way to connect one-on-one with a child and also a low-key way to encourage his or her drawing.

6. The Exquisite Corpse Game – Portrait Version!

Create portraits by trading drawings and adding new features. It’s sure to bring laughs and is a great way to explore creatively together.

7. Double Doodle Art

Double doodle art is fun, relaxing, and a great way to exercise the brain as it uses both sides of the brain simultaneously.

More Fun Drawing Games

Here are some art games from around the web…

8. Draw with Art Dice (on Tinkerlab)

9. 10 Drawing Games for Kids (on Craftwhack)

10. Elements of Art Memory Game (on Teach Kids Art)

11. TeleDraw (on Mini Matisse)

12. Art Director Cootie Catcher printable (on Crayola)

How about you? Do you play art games with your kids? What are your favorites?

Want More Drawing Activities? Visit the Kids Art Spot where we have a Drawing Workshop for Kids. This online workshop for kids and families features 10 super fun and easy drawing activities, each with a step-by-step video tutorial and printable instructions.

More Drawing Games for Kids

• Double Doodle Art for Kids
• A Back-and-Forth Drawing Game for Kids
• A Simple Heart Drawing Activity
• Magazine Pictures as Drawing Prompts
• The Scribble Drawing Game for Kids
• The Combination Man Drawing Game

Does your child want to explore the world of drawing and expand their skills? Check out our three-part Drawing Skills Master Class for kids! Your child can learn to draw at home with 3 unique modules: Line & Shape, Light & Shadow, and Perspective. With at-home video lessons and easy-to-follow printable workbooks, your child will build skills and confidence as they learn to draw!

SHOP NOW

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Updated June 2023

Want to learn how to paint a watercolor geode?

These mixed media artworks are a great activity for kids 4 year olds all the way up to adults! And you can easily swap in many of the materials for whatever you have at home.

But before we get started, what exactly is a geode?

Geodes are round rocks that are hollow in the inside and lined with crystals. Pretty cool, right?

Kids find this activity almost meditative as they slip into a mindful state of flow while adding rings around the center. (I think that’s why everyone enjoys making them so much!)

Here’s how you can make your own at home.

Watercolor Geode Painting for Kids

MATERIALS

• thick paper, like drawing paper or watercolor paper
• colored paper in warm & cool colors
• colored sharpies or markers
• water soluble pastels, crayons or colored pencils
• watercolor paintbrushes
• water
• liquid watercolors or whatever type of watercolors you have
• glue stick

Extend the activity for adults: If you wish to do this activity with adults or teenagers, try thick watercolor paper, colored tissue paper, artist-quality watercolors, water soluble pencils, colored drawing inks, gold pens and even gold leaf and glitter for extra-fancy results!

More Watercolor Activities for Kids

• 6 Amazing Watercolor Resist Techniques To Try With Kids
• How to Make Raised Salt Paintings
• 11 Fun Watercolor Ideas for Kids
• Blow Painting with Straws + How to Video
• 7 Watercolor Techniques for Kids

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