Today we did some tape resist snowflake art. It is really, really cold outside. We went sledding yesterday with a pile of kids and lasted half an hour, when normally we're happy to spend a whole morning out there. This morning, I wanted something that would entertain everyone and that didn't involve any of us having to get out of our pyjamas.
I took some dollar store canvases (They are 2/$1 at our local dollar store for roughly sheet-of-printer-paper sized) and some painter's tape. For the younger kids (D and a sleepover friend) I cut and taped the snowflake shape onto the canvas. M made her own with a tape-tearing technique (center flake), reasoning that it would make for a more interesting effect. You have to make sure to press the tape down really well at the edges.
I could only locate three paintbrushes, so I squirted several shades of blue directly onto the canvas and told them to swirl it around, right over the tape and covering the entire canvas. This is nicer looking at the end if they leave some difference in the colours, but D and his friend preferred the globbing-and-mushing approach. To each his own, right?!
You can see that M left some stripes of different blues on hers.
The hardest part of this was waiting for the globs to dry so that we could pull off the tape - I am as bad as the kids! But eventually, we peeled it off carefully. Tah-dah!
As a finishing touch, I think we'll paint the flakes with some clear glitter paint we have. They're now on the fireplace mantel, adding some seasonal art.
And in the kitchen, a quick magnet matching game I whipped up using images of Snowflake Bentley's photography went onto our fridge:
And, may I add, it is 4pm and I am still resplendent in bathrobe and big fuzzy slippers.
