Upcycled Flower Art

As the saying goes, April showers bring May flowers. In anticipation of the colorful spring season, we want to encourage your little seedling to let their creativity bloom. It’s a perfect rainy-day craft too, so bookmark this page to help brighten a gloomy day.

We’re sharing a fun spin on flower art that utilizes recycled bottles from your return bin and a few other materials you likely have on hand. Watch this video and then create your own!

You’ll Need:

• Paint
• Paper
• Paper plate or dish
• Empty plastic bottles
• Crayons or markers

Step 1: Select and prepare the plastic bottles. Choose a variety by looking at the bottom. A standard soda/pop bottle, for example, will produce a 5-point star type shape when used as a stamp. Other bottles may create round flowers or other shapes in various sizes. With safety in mind, remove all bottle caps, especially with younger children present.

Step 2: Begin by drawing the stems. Use the crayons or markers for this. Encourage your child to draw empty stems for each flower they’d like to create. Perhaps your child wants to focus on a single flower. Maybe they’d like to make a full bouquet or a field of wildflowers. Consider adding leaves and/or grass too.

Step 3: Pour paint onto your plate or into your dish. Let your child dip the bottom of the bottle in the paint and then stamp it onto the paper above each stem. These are your flower petals! Repeat this step as little or as much as you’d like using one color or multiple colors of paint.

Step 4: Add final details. After the stamped flowers are dry, you can draw additional details to complete your painting. Let your child’s creative vision lead the way—maybe add a blue sky, a butterfly, a frog, or other springtime images.

Work together to find other safe materials you might be able to reuse as a stamp to add to this picture or to create something new. A small oval sponge could be the stamp for a honeybee’s body—let it dry, then draw wings! A crinkled piece of scrap paper could be used to blot texture onto a smooth landscape.

What other non-traditional tools might you use to enhance this craft?