Top 5 Tips for Creating Garden Art
Our friends at Up All Hours have provided us with some awesome top tips on how you and your little ones can create and craft some garden art this summer. Read on to find out... The summer weather is great in many ways but mainly because it means gone are the days of countless wet play afternoons in the confines of the sitting room. The problem with these endless afternoons of indoor craft is that your sitting room bears the brunt of it and usually ends up looking like some sort of glittery and gluey Armageddon! But with the Summer, comes an excuse for some outdoor craft so here are our Top 5 tips for creating art in the garden.
- The Wonder of Water: Art does not need to include paint, especially for the smaller ones. Fill a bucket with water and get a good, big paint brush from Homebase or somewhere like that. Position them in front of a wall or better yet a fence and let them paint away! The water turns the brick or wood darker and keeps them occupied for hours with no chance of Jackson Pollock inspired masterpieces across your garden at the end of it! The best bit is that when the water dries they can start all over again!
- Leaf Rubbing: Send the little ones off on a scavenger hunt across the garden to collect different types of leaves. Put a piece of paper over each leaf and with a crayon rub over the top of the leaf and the crayons will create the impression of the leaf. This is also a good one to do on the bark of a tree.
- Fairy/Pixie House or a Bug Hotel: With the Summer upon us the fairies are out in force and are in desperate need of accommodation! So arm your little one with a box (shoe box or even washing tablet box etc) and set them to work on collecting flowers and leaves to decorate the house, as well as grass and moss etc to make it comfortable for the fairy. The beauty of this is that the house can always have more added to it, extensions, gardens, swimming pool!
- Stone Painting: There are plenty of stones in most gardens or, even better on most British beaches, if you happen to be visiting any over the Summer. So gather up a collection of stones in all different shapes and sizes and set your little ones to work on decorating them. They can paint patterns and pictures on the stones and even set up a little stall selling them for charity or do name tag stones for dinner table, or paint them different colours for inclusion in the garden of the fairy house! They also make great gifts for grandparents etc and once they are done they can even varnish them to make them glossy with some cheap clear nail varnish. Minimum mess maximum fun!
- Perfume Factory: Home made lotions and potions can be lots of fun for kids! The easiest is homemade “perfume”. A bowl of water and petals is all you need for this but getting kids to wander off around the garden looking for different coloured shapes and colours of petals is a great way to keep them entertained. If you have any herbs in the garden it is a great excuse to talk to them about them about them and maybe add a few of those too, to further enhance the smell. In addition if you have any food colouring left over from baking this is a great final addition to finish off the perfume. Then it just needs to be put in a jam jar and have a label decorated and it is ready to go!