Malaysia Crafts: Leaf Stamping

I liked a recent blog post on Mommy Labs about creating all different sorts of stamps, especially using leaves and flowers. So we packed up our paints and joined up with one of our neighbors for some outdoor craft time. I encouraged The Whirl Girl to think of her visit to the Malaysian jungle while she was making her artwork.

Supplies:

• a big sheet of paper
• paints: we used a mix of Crayola washable paints
• paint brushes (optional)
• leaves, collected from the ground
  

The first step was to roam around our outdoor space collecting different kinds of leaves.

Then The Whirl Girl painted them, with her fingers...

...and with brushes.

And stamped them on the paper.

More fun with a friend!

The leaf stamp didn't make much of a leaf-shaped image on the paper, but the kids enjoyed doing it. And they ended up with a very colorful piece of paper.

Running around the playground with their artwork

It was fun to do art outside, painting in a different environment and using familiar objects that they wouldn't have necessarily thought of to paint with. They loved the novelty and the messiness of it.