create (with kids): stenciling

Isia just turned three! As such, there's a growing interest in art that "looks like something." To help fulfill that wish, and build some fine-motor skills, we like to do some stenciling. During our last session I found some ways that make it less frustrating for her, and easier for me to help too- especially when we have friends to join in the fun.

This is how our stenciling began. We laid our stencils on top of the paper and painted them with brushes. But the stencils tended to move around on the girls, who struggled with holding them and painting them at the same time. 

 I wondered how I could keep the stencils in one place for the girls? Tape? Glue? How about... magnets! Sure enough, placing them on a cookie sheet for Renyah (and baking pan for Isia) allowed us to use magnets to hold them down as the girls painted.

This worked much better. Now they could concentrate on just filling in the areas of the stencil, and their beautiful butterflies could come to life. We used these stencils that I found at our local art store...

but you could easily make your own. We like to make ours out of up-cycled plastic lids, here, but you could use freezer paper, cereal box cardboard, poster-board or card-stock among other things. Three cheers for hands-free stenciling- and happy little artists!