I have seen a ton of raindrop mobile projects using wax paper and crayon shavings to make dynamically colored drops that catch the sun so delightfully! But I don’t like hauling out the iron…
I wanted to make a similar look with way less effort. Because I’m a mom. And I’m tired.
So I came up with this project and I have to say: I love it!
You can hang this from whatever you have handy. I happened to have a flower crown! We took some long stemmed flowers and flowering vines and wove them together to make this masterpiece, which my Flutterbutt wore in her hair even after it broke several times (hence the scotch tape). But this project was a perfect way to repurpose this super-special-no-way-we-could-throw-it-away-mom-how-could-you-even-think-of-such-a-thing flower crown.
Raindrop Mobile without an Iron
Materials:
- A form to hang the raindrops from
- tracing paper or parchment paper
- waterproof writing utensil
- watercolors (blues, grays, purples)
- table salt
- needle
- thread
Instructions:
Use your waterproof writing utensil (I used a sharpie) to draw the outline of your raindrops. If you use a washable marker or an ink pen, the watercolors will make the lines run, which could create some cool effects, but may make it harder to cut out the shape when you’re done.
You can freehand it, like I did here, or you can print this free template! This template will be easy to trace on either tracing paper or parchment paper.
Then you can hand off the paper to the kids equipped with watercolors! Did you know you can pop out the oval paint pans from Crayola Watercolors? If it’s important to you to stick to raindrop colors, you can limit the colors you give them. (If you’re wondering how you can let kids run off and paint without intensive amounts of supervision, check out my art station post!)
When the paint is still wet, let the kids sprinkle a bit of salt on the raindrops. The salt absorbs water so it will suck up the watercolor leaving a gorgeous pattern.
After the paint and the salt dries, dust of the salt crystals and cut out the shapes.
I used needle and thread to make two vertical holes at the top of each raindrop, in and out and tied the threads on the back. Then I tied the thread to my frame!
There you have it! The Raindrop Mobile!
Did you try it?! Tag @flourishandsplat and let me know how it turned out!
