After our success with the stickers keeping the toddlers happily busy, I decided to try a sticker art project with Maia as well.
This is definitely one of those to be filed under Easy Kids Art Projects!
I set out black hole challenge paper for her after school along with a couple sheets of the hole reinforcement stickers. I had no idea what to expect and really enjoyed seeing what she did with the stickers!
This was a super easy kids art project with the added bonus of being quiet, low mess, and, of course, creative.
Maia began by circling the hole with her stickers.
By the way, I love veering away from white paper and offering black once in a while, especially with white paint, white oil pastels, or, in this case, white stickers. The contrast is visually striking and by getting the emphasis off color choices, kids can focus more on design and form.
Here’s Maia’s first completed sticker artwork—she said it was a baked potato with a mound of sour cream on top. Ha! That cracked me up.
I found it interesting that she filled in the hole by gluing a piece of brown construction paper to the back of the paper.
I had a few hole challenge papers waiting in reserve and she used the second one to create a frog with the stickers.
Again she added colored construction paper to the reverse to fill in the hole, and then to the front as well. She also drew a frog on the back of the green paper.
And finally, for her third hole challenge, I unveiled the colored dot stickers.
I knew that if pink, green, and yellow stickers were on offer from the beginning, she was likely to ignore the modest white ones. So while she had thoroughly enjoyed working with the hole reinforcement stickers, she now focused on the colored dots almost exclusively, creating a cat.
And who doesn’t like stickers?
Also, did you know that you can buy the plain white dot stickers and paint them with watercolors? Take a look at this post by Julie at Honey Butter Granola! It’s on our list to try next…
Update: We’ve since painted stickers from the stationery store! Love it!
How about you? What are your favorite easy kids art projects?
18 Comments
Carly
March 5, 2012 at 9:26 amI am going to the store on my lunch break and buying reinforcements and dot stickers. This is a perfect after daycare activity while I get dinner ready. I’m always amazed at how exciting new stickers can be.
PS. I made some frame wallpaper for the kids this weekend. They were so excited that they both just scribbled madly on it at first. Once the excitement wore off, my daughter started drawing in the frames. My favourite is the frame “filled with kisses” (x’s and o’s). Thanks, as always, for the great ideas.
Sarah M
March 5, 2012 at 9:39 amMy kids, especially my daughter, just love stickers, though I have never seen an art project like this before. I love how creative and open ended this is. As always, thanks for sharing. The projects are so inspiring and really help me plan for ‘downtimes’ in our day.
Sarah M
PS-My son STILL picks up crisp leaves here and there for more of the silver leaf doodling + modge podge!
Dena
March 5, 2012 at 11:18 amJean,
Valerie from Frugal family fun (now inner child fun) put this in my dollar store package prize that I won!! Going to do some kind of 2 1/2 year old version of this. Thanks so much for the ideas!
MaryAnn F. Kohl, art book author and educator
March 5, 2012 at 12:00 pmHi, Everyone. This challenge art idea is in my Scribble Art book with a few more suggestions of what other things you can do, but what I love most about Jean is that she takes a simple idea (hole in the paper) and combines it with another simple idea (any kind of stickers), and lo and behold, a new exciting art experience for kids evolves! Maia and Daphne are so lucky (and artsy)!!
Ricka
March 5, 2012 at 4:15 pmHi Jean, that is such a cool thing to let the kids keeping quiet moment, somethime my toddler likes place her sticker on my hand & clothing, i feel is it the way to use sticker. For toddler, it is a lot of the way to explore their thinking, we haven’t known yet too. I will try your way to let my toddler exploring her art work. Thanks a lot.
Ricka
Jean Van't Hul
March 5, 2012 at 12:51 pmThanks, MaryAnn! I just looked back to my first post about hole challenge art and saw that you recommended I try it! (https://artfulparent.com/2010/07/painting-around-the-hole.html ) Thanks so much for all your inspiration! We’ve had so much fun with this idea and variations of it over the last couple of years!
Jean Van't Hul
March 5, 2012 at 12:53 pmAwesome! And I didn’t know she had a new name — I’ll have to check it out…
Jean Van't Hul
March 5, 2012 at 12:55 pmThanks, Sarah! And thanks for sharing that your son still loves to doodle on leaves! I’m always so happy to hear that an idea I’ve shared has been appreciated, especially by the kiddos!
Jean Van't Hul
March 5, 2012 at 12:57 pmOh, it makes me happy to think of that frame filled with kisses and hugs! :) Maia just made an artwork (one in a long line of x’s and o’s art) of kisses and hugs on a sheet of wood. I LOVE it!
Carmen
March 5, 2012 at 8:15 pmThis is such an easy and creative project. Thanks for sharing.
Carmen
Sarah
March 5, 2012 at 10:10 pmWhat a fantasic combination of ideas! Perhaps it will encourage my preschooler to sit more than the usual 30 seconds.
Katie Westacott
March 6, 2012 at 3:43 pmI love the hole-in-the-paper idea! I’m definitely going to get a stack of that ready for the easel at school this week! I’m always on the lookout for new and inspiring ideas to keep my class interested in creating their own works of art independently.
Georgine
March 6, 2012 at 2:35 pmWe are going on holiday next week and I am picking these stickers up for the plane ride. Markers markers/crayons always roll off the tray onto the floor so these will be great. And the finished product looks so cool. Thanks for the Idea!!!!
Amber
March 26, 2012 at 8:55 pmNeat! Been awhile since I’ve pulled out “imagination paper”…which is what we call these types of papers. So interesting to see the outcomes. So different from one child to the next.
Beth
April 5, 2012 at 8:18 amThanks for this, I think I enjoyed it more than my 3 year old but it’s definitely one we’ll keep trying with!
Heather Collins
April 10, 2012 at 8:09 pmI am setting this up for my daughter this afternoon. Did you use scissors or an xacto knife? just wondering, because it doesn’t look like you folded your paper because I don’t see any creases. I am going to try it with the xacto knife.. I wouldn’t say I am very good using it tho!
Heather Collins
April 11, 2012 at 6:06 pmI made a triangle with an x-acto knife and it worked well. For the circle, I started it with the x-acto knife and finished with scissors. It turned out to be more of a blob but that’s okay. Sophie added “legs” to it to make it a spider. I thought that was very creative. For the triangle, she added a bunch of the reinforcement stickers to the top to make a flag (like on a castle).
It was a lot of fun and we will definitely do it again! The set of reinforcement stickers that I bought are neon colors.
Jean Van't Hul
April 11, 2012 at 4:12 pmHeather – I jabbed the center of the paper with the point of the scissors to make a hole, then just used the scissors to cut my shape out. Sorry, I wasn’t on the computer yesterday, so didn’t answer in time. How did it go with the x-acto knife?