Like many avid DIYers, we’ve amassed a large stack of scrap wood from various woodworking projects. I’m always looking for new creative ways to use it. Although we’ve all become familiar with wood signs, shiplap walls, and wainscotting, there are many other creative ways to use wood in your home decor projects.
Easy Art for Kids – Painting On Wood.
You know how we are doing that crazy renovating thing right? Well there is a lot of scraps and off cuts of wood lying around the Pickle Farm at the moment. We had lots of fun creating sculptures and building things with the wood scraps and glue guns, and we’ve enjoyed using the wood scraps with play dough too, but we still have heaps of bits of wood lying around.
What to do with all those lovely boards??
Paint on them of course!
An easy way to make basic watercolour painting a little different and exciting is to change the thing you are painting on. There are so many things you can paint on besides paper, and these lovely smooth planks of wood made the perfect canvas.
Watercolour paints are also a low messy, easy, painting option – so this activity took no time at all to set up and was cleaned up in a flash.
The kids painted and painted, watching how the watercolours ‘sunk in’ to the wood quite quickly… different to how the paint goes on to paper.
When we were done we had a huge collection of beautifully coloured wooden planks. We saved them to use in our block constructions and imaginative play.
This easy art for kids activity, was simple, low mess, and had lots of interesting and creative results!
So if you happen to be building something, or wandering past a building site, take a look around and see if they have any wood scraps that you could paint on!
What are some other surfaces you’ve painted on?
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Read the comments or scroll down to add your own:
- Kate @ Puddles and Gumboots says
What a good idea for making use of the excess wood you have hanging around! Such a pretty and colourful end result too! Good luck with the host transfer, I hope it goes smoothly for you 🙂
What a great idea. My boys would love this.
Such a great idea, i’ve done this before with off cuts, even if the art isn’t worth of keeping, it sure keeps them busy!! When my 4 were little i’d also give them a bucket of water with food colouring in it, a paint brush & say “off you & paint the fence/ bricks/ windows” & it kept them entertained for hours!! Love Posie
You are so right, it is always the simple things that kids find most appealing. These look fantastic – I’ll definitely have to give them a go!
new follower- I like your blog so much I put it on my home page! from the play hop- Kelli
(now I know what to do with that stack of wood in the garage I just knew I’d have a need for!) 🙂
so fun that you are making art with your scraps and it turned out wonderfully. All those colors just made me smile! would love for you to link this up on the sunday showcase – http://momto2poshlildivas.blogspot.com/2011/08/sunday-showcase-81411-link-up-share.html Bernadette
This is a great idea. I had several large cardboard cylinders that someone had given me set out in the block area. One day a child brought them to the art area when we were using paint.The idea caught on and soon all the cylinders were painted. It’s great to have those painted cylinders in the block area.
I had also had a parent cut me some round three quaeter inch thick pieces of wood to use for making necklaces. These were out on my desk for use later in the week. A child spotted them and took them to the block area. Soon they were rolling them down a plank, taking turns to see which one rolled the furthest. If we are open as teachers to our plans changing, by the children’s explorations we can be pleasantly srprised that the learning results may be richer than we ever intended from the original project idea.
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