Bunny pictures from hand stamp

I did this fun bunny craft with the kids at the preschool last week in preparation for Easter. Every single one is just sooo adorable in my opinion that it was next to impossible to leave any out! Check out their individual pictures below!

What did you think? Pretty sweet! Right? I love that each of these bunny pictures truly reflected the kids who made them — unique and beautiful, just like they are.

I credit my son with this craft, as it was he who looked up at his snowman craft on the refrigerator, and said, "I want to make an Easter bunny craft like that, but instead of the snow, we should make grass, and instead of the snowman, a bunny." I was so excited and impressed. Ever since we have started doing craft projects on a more regular basis, I've noticed Bode start thinking about, and coming up with activities and crafts for us to do.  I LOVE when I witness his mind being creative like this! AND I am a HUGE advocate of following my child's lead. There is no positive reinforcement like that of than validating another person's idea, supporting it and seeing it through to fruition.

I applied the same principles to the bunny picture as I did to the snowman picture (torn ground & circle shapes). And with the picture that I did at home with my son, we also used a hole punch to punch out colored paper to represent falling blossoms.
Here is the step by step tutorial:

Materials used:

• half sheet of construction paper in a light color. I had the kids choose either pink, yellow, or light blue to represent the pastel colors of Easter
• Circles cut out of white paper; 2 circles each in the following diameters: 1.25" (for head), 1.75" (for body)
• green construction paper for the grass
• white tempera paint
• paint brush
• scissors
• Glue stick
• marker to draw face
• hole punch (optional)

Step one: Paint middle finger, pointer finger and thumb white.

Step Two: Press hand down on OPPOSITE side of background paper! (if you painted the left hand, press it down on the right hand side! And/or vice versa!)

One set of bunny ears and tail done!

Step Three: Paint the other hand and press it down on the opposite side as well.

Step four: Position and glue down circles for head and body

Step Five: Do the same for the other bunny

Step Six: Have child rip and glue on green construction paper at bottom of the page for grass. Position it so it looks like the bunnies are sitting in the grass.

Step Seven: Turn over paper and cut off excess green paper if there is any.

Step Eight: Have child draw on faces! This is the step where the project was complete at the preschool. I did a few more steps with my son when we did the project at home though. See below.

Step Nine: Have child punch out paper in flower blossom colors. We were going for cherry blossoms so we used pink.

Step Ten: Glue down colored dots.

Instead of the snow falling from the sky as we did in the Snowman project, I thought it would be cute to have the cherry blossoms falling down instead, to represent Spring. My son refused to have them be "cherry blossoms" and insisted that they must be cherries. And so he drew cherry stems :)
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Happy crafting! 

Handprint lambs with packing peanuts

Knowing that Easter is right around the corner, I decided to get festive and have my son make a little "Easter" art to hang around the house. I had seen the cute little lamb crafts circulating around the internet with a child's handprint and cotton balls (Check it out here). I've also seen some pretty amazing ones around made with other common household materials, like hole reinforcers (check it out here) and then most recently found lambs made with cotton rounds (check it out here). Last week, I scored a bag full of packing peanuts from MECCA, our local store that saves materials from the landfill, puts them back into circulation and into the hands of crafters/teachers like me (who are working on a shoestring budget). I thought that we ought to try using these peanuts for the lamb's coat, because, after all, what could beat recycled material and free?

First I painted my son's hand and pressed it down on a piece of paper.

My son then glued down the packing peanuts onto the "body" of the sheep.

He then glued down a googly eye. We got these unique-looking googly eyes from Discount School Supply.

He then drew on ears and a tail with marker.

The final product. A pretty cute little lambie I think!

He also made a rainbow sheep for no other reason than just because we found these colorful packing peanuts in the bag. He, of course being the awesomely creative kid he is, couldn't resist using them; and really who could blame him? I love the way it turned out. I like to think of it as not exactly the "black sheep" of the family but the "Rastafarian hippie sheep".

If you liked this post and you want to stay informed of more kid activity ideas I post or find around the blogosphere, remember to "like" me on my Facebook Page! Thank you! Have a wonderful day!
Have a good weekend!