big sister artwork project tutorial

geographical separations are always hard on everyone. this one has been substantially more complicated than any one we have faced-even his middle east deployments. this one in particular has been the hardest on bella. 

today, when she asked where daddy was, and i told her he was at work, she said, "but i know where his work is! it's not very far!". 

she is such a daddy's girl. through and through. we have been fighting a bit, and fighting with a three year old is much more frustrating than you may imagine. or maybe it's exactly as frustrating as you may imagine. 

so, to keep our minds straight, i've been trying very hard to keep us busy. today, we did some crafting and organizing. sounds really fun for her, right? she actually really enjoyed it, apparently. 

we made some fancy schmantsy art work for cora's room, and bella pretty much did it all. so here is my {big sister artwork} 

tutorial.

first things first, gather your supplies.

-a canvas of you choosing. we used and 18x24 canvas.

-your color palate. we used acrylic paints, because water cleanup, duh.  

-brushes, we used cheap crayola brand ones so bella can do her worst. 

-a sharpie or pen

-contact paper. i thought the lite tack would make it easier to move off of the canvas. in my opinion, it was a little too light on the tack. so i maybe would use something a little stickier next time.

-scissors 

next, recruit the best painter money can buy.

cut a piece of contact paper the size of your canvas. using the sharpie, sketch out your silhouette. we were making rtwork for cora's nursery which is done in elephants, so i sketched out an elephant. the great thing is, you can mess up and it doesn't really matter. 

next cut out your shape, and lay it on the canvas, pressing down to make sure it is stuck well enough to not let paint seep under. (here is where the tack was lacking. i used a little mod podge under the edges to make sure it didn't move much).

then put that helper to work!

at this point, she can kind of go crazy. we let each color dry mostly before we added more paint, so it at least didn't look all brown. 

let the whole thing dry, then peel up the contact paper.

it wasn't perfect, but it looks like an elephant. 

now hang and enjoy. her nursery is coming along. my girls rooms are in a constant state of flux.