Create lovely backdrops with wall decals.
The Dollar Store wall decals will make a really good craft idea to make backdrops for "small world play". It does not need much of resource or time commitment.
Recently I discovered dollar store has really cute kids theme wall decals. It was a impulse buy as my friend convinced me, "its just a dollar and you can decorate some part of his play room with it". I wasn't really sold with that idea but brought it anyways as they were so cute and one of them had his favorite subject: vehicles.
A day later it dawned on me that these decals will make a really good craft idea to make backdrops for "small world play". It does not need much of resource or time commitment, let me show you what you will need.
Let's make it
You will nee
Card sheet - any color of your choice
Wall decal - Dollar tree has the perfect size (and price)
Construction paper
Paints
Paint applicators - like brush, sponge etc
Pallet or paper plate
Sharpie
Scissors
Hot glue
Tape
Process
Day 1 | Paint | Time: 30 minutes
if you have precut ones like me, stick the two card sheets together with the help of tape. We need minimum 12 in x 24 in of paper as these wall decals are big enough and can fill any smaller size sheet, quickly.
We took some pale yellow construction paper, and painted three sheets of paper green. This time I wanted him to see two primary colors mix to make a secondary color. So we took yellow and blue on our pallet and Bubu mixed it. He was very excited to see that mixing the two made the color green appear like magic out of nowhere.
We used different techniques for painitng each sheet. First one, we filled the paper with Bubu's hand print. On the second we took two brushes and stippled all over to cover in green paint. On the third sheet we used a dish scrubber to apply the green paint. These technique's will show your Bubu, by using different applicators texture can be added while painting.
Let the sheets dry for a day as some parts will be dense with paint and will take time to dry.
Day 1 | Prep: 5 mins
Cut the green papers to resemble meadows.
Stick it with glue.
Let dry overnight.
Outline the meadows at this stage it will be easier. I did it after adding the stickers and was tricker to get into the edges.
Day 2 | Sticker time | Time: 30 minutes
Time for the fun part, adding the stickers aka wall decals.
I started with establishing the scene for Bubu. I explained the green is the ground and the rest is the sky.
With each sticker I asked where will it go. Eg: "Look this is the barn where will it go? On the ground or in the sky!" Bubu would answer. Then I would ask, "Which meadow do want to put this on" and would point to the 3 options of land he has. He would choose one and then try to stick it in the place he chose.
This helps Bubu to add logic to creating a meaningful background.
Some of you might think I directed him to make a logical looking background, and why so when this is just art. You can argue art need's to be free and whatever Bubu want's. Here's my perspective. If I would have given him the stickers and he would be in charge maybe we would not end up with a background that made sense. Which is fine at a different time. Like for example, we do a lot of sticker book free style. Where he gets a blank page book and sheet of stickers and he just sits and sticks stickers randomly. This one I wanted him to think and make more logical decision to create a background. I have my Masters in Design and during the foundation year I have practiced fine art as one of the subjects. Fine art has a lot of decisions, there are rules, standards, logic and principles added to the free expression to make a sellable artwork. Layman may not notice this. This is the beginning of fine art thinking, I wanted Bubu to experience. And hence the directed approach for this particular art activity.
Only two day commitment and your backdrop is ready. We took our backdrop, of a farm or "Old Mc Donald farm" like Bubu calls it for the show-and-tell Friday. I suggested to the class teacher that maybe the kids can sing the Old Mc Donald rhyme with the aid of our artwork. They did do so and Bubu pretends to be the teacher at home and imitates and sings what happened in school.
We also made the vehicles one. It took only 30 mins. I stuck the sheets together and placed the road. Bubu stuck all the vehicles, including the rail track and train. It was an impromptu craft we hurriedly did on Saturday morning as Bubu was craving some artwork/craft time together. I dint want to let go of that opportunity so there isn't much thought on this one.
Hope you raid your local Dollar Store and are inspired to create backdrops for small-world-play with the wall decals they have to offer.
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