Greeting Cards for Preschoolers - Tutorial

This is a two for one tutorial... making easy thank you cards with preschoolers. And homemade watercolors! Yay! We'll start with the cards... then you can skip to the bottom for the watercolor.


Materials:

Watercolor paper
White Crayon
Blank Greeting Cards
Glue
Watercolors (see recipe below)
brush
water bowl
rag (I used tshirt scraps)

Step 1: Cut watercolor paper into smaller rectangles/squares to fit on the front of the greeting cards. I made ours 3" x 3.75" only because that's how the paper evenly split to make 9 cards.

Step 2: Write with white crayon whatever message you want - ours was Thank You since these were for her friends after her birthday party. I also did this without my daughter so that she would be surprised when a message appeared in her painting.

Step 3: Set up a painting area with a large water bowl, drying rag right next to the bowl, water colors all set on top of some newsprint (optional).

Step 4: Let them paint! I did it with my daughter so that I could help her learn how to use the brush correctly (for example, no smashing of the bristles). I know - let them do what they will... but it's really important to me that she start learning how to take care of her things.

Step 5: The more paint they put on, the better the message will appear... so encourage lots of paint. I told her to cover the whole piece of paper. We also did them all at once since she has a short attention span. Worked great!

Step 6: Wait for the paint to dry (the homemade watercolors dry quickly). Glue the painting onto the front of the greeting card... and you're done! (See picture at the top of the post)

****

Homemade Watercolors (from Associated Content)

Materials:

Light Corn Syrup

White Vinegar

Corn Starch

Baking Soda

Food Coloring

Bowl for mixing

Step 1: Mix 3tsp Corn Syrup, 6 tbsp Vinegar, 6 tbsp Corn Starch and 6 tbsp Baking Soda into a bowl. After doing this, I realized that there was going to be watercolors left over... so I put them into small disposable containers.

Step 2: Divide the mixture by the number of colors you are making. We made 6.

Step 3: Add food coloring to make each color. I had my son do this part. And mix (I did this part so it didn't get all over him).

Step 4: Paint with them! It's that simple. We found that a little paint went a long way.