We’ve been having a wonderful time with this fabric painting art project for kids. We used fabric paints to create gorgeous fall tree art.
We’ve been participating in a fun #crafttheparcel challenge along with 8 other lovely UK craft bloggers. Our challenge was to come together in a chain to create a bespoke patchwork quilt. Each blogger has to create a 12″ square panel to be sewn onto the blanket before sending it via InPost to the next blogger in line. The final quilt will be donated to charity at the end!
I thought this was such a lovely idea and can never resist a crafty challenge or the opportunity to team up with other craft lovers!
Our part of the whole exciting process started with the previous blogger Capture By Lucy, sending the blanket to our nearest Inpost collection locker for us to collect. Have you used InPost yet? It was such a convenient way to collect a parcel. We went along to the lockers, typed in a code that had been sent by text and voila a few seconds later the locker had opened, our parcel was in our hands and we were driving on our way. How fantastic not to have to wait in for a parcel to be delivered or even worse, miss the delivery and have to queue forever at your local depot!
The children and I loved seeing all the wonderful and varied designs and techniques the bloggers before us had used. There was gorgeous bright crochet, beautiful embroidery and even printed photography.
For our section of the quilt I wanted an art project that the children and I could work on collaboratively so I chose to use some fabric paints and textile markers. They’re a great way for children to work with textiles without needing to sew.
We love the gorgeous wintry sunsets and silhouettes of trees that we see on our way home from school at this time of year and wanted to reproduce that sort of effect on our art project. We’re delighted with the end result and thoroughly enjoyed the painting process, it was such a lovely way for us all to work together and we didn’t need to be skilled to join in.
Supplies For Our Fabric Painting Art Project For Kids
Fabric Painting Art Project For Kids – How We Did It
To start off we wet our fabric square and then colour washed it with diluted fabric paints to give it a sunset feel.
Once the fabric paint colour wash had dried we set about drawing on our rough design of our tree using chalk and then going over that with textile markers putting in the detail.
My 11-year-old had a quick trial run on scrap fabric first and then set to work on our art project and I helped with the smaller branches.
Using spirals to colour in a large area worked really well and avoided the streaky pen effect he probably would have got if he’d attempted to colour in the area solidly. I really like the hint of textured bark that it gives.
Once the skeleton of the tree was finished we set about adding the coloured foliage using the textile markers. These started with simple dots of colour that then got circled by other colours again and again.
It was such a fun art project to work on together and before long the fabric was bursting with beautiful colours! It was such an easy way to create something pretty and I loved that the children and I could come together to do it collaboratively.
This art project for kids is really flexible too. By showing them the technique they can then create so many different end results.
What colour will the children use for their colour wash? What design will they use for their tree trunk? What about their foliage? Will it be concentric circles like the ones we did or maybe triangles or squares or a mixture?
We loved our end result of our art project so much that we actually went on to do another one on a fabric bag as a present for my mum and I have plans to set up another art project for the kids getting them to paint some cushion covers for our lounge too. InPost’s charity craft project has started us on a fabric painting frenzy LOL!
Our next stage was to sew our square on to the blanket and pass it on to the next blogger. I didn’t even need to leave the house to do this! I just popped online to book an InPost collection and they came the very next morning to collect the blanket and send it on its way to the lovely Jenny at The Gingerbread House. I’m really looking forward to seeing what she creates on her 12″ square.
The fabric paints have been a great way for the family to create something pretty together and this has been a super fun art project to be involved with from start to finish. I’ve loved the convenience of InPost for parcel collection and delivery so keep an eye out for your nearest collection lockers, they’re cropping up all over the place!
(This was a collaborative creative project for charity, sponsored by InPost.)
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