Kids Crafts - Making Apple Prints a Little Easier - Red Ted Art

Today on Kids Get Crafty, I am FINALLY getting round to doing some Apple Printing with Red Ted. We came up with a little technique make it easier for small chubby fingers. Come take a look. Don’t forget that this is also a link up party/ blog hop for all craftiness with and for children! Do take part. Do be inspired! Link up at bottom of post! Hooray!

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So, why did I say “finally”? It has been “apple printing seasons” for weeks now and I have been seeing lovely crafts all over the other lovely blogs. We however, have been having some difficulties “doing them”:

1) I like to use the mini apples that fall from our (small) tree, as the tree itself produce precious few fruit. So our apples are smaller and harder to handle.

2) Red Ted didn’t quite “get” printing at first, so needed several goes to understand and “want to do it”.

3) I don’t know about you, but I find veg printing usually results in the veg (or fruit) sticking to the paper and not coming off very easily and you ending up with lots of paint all over your hands.

So. After some pondering and some practice, we came up with this: the humble cloth peg! We have used cloth pegs and cotton wool to paint before, so Red Ted love these. I just “stuck” the peg into the apple and hey presto, we had a handle for printing and it went so much easier. Less mess too!

So we made some wrapping paper (to get our printing fingers) and then we made some trees. Red Ted loved painting the green of the tree and his little face lit up when he saw the red apple go on top. I then cut the trees out for him and put them on colour paper as a present for Granny and Grandpa!

And here is a gorgeous little book:

Our Apple Tree by Gorel Kristina Naslund, Kristina Digman. I love this book – it takes you through the season and explains what “the apple tree is doing throughout the year”. We may only see activity in spring and summer, but the tree is hard at work all year round. I love how it explains the seasons and makes you think about all the things going on throughout the year. I also adore the illustrations. Having grown some vegetables together this year, Red Ted really has taken to books showing how things grow and it is great to look at one that shows what the trees do all by themselves – i.e. nothing from us. I think he can’t wait for next spring and watching everything again.