Flowers are beautiful. In every form. I love the color, texture and especially the scent of them. When I thought about flowers and Mother’s Day, my mind immediately went to Gerbera daisies. Can you look at a Gerbera daisy and not smile just a bit? It’s like happiness on a stem for me. And I’ve always wanted to try painting flowers. The Babe was so confused initially. “Do we really get to paint on the flowers, Mommy?” But she was right on board once we started.
We used some standard watercolor paints and started painting away. I was really into this project so it wasn’t as much of a set up and go get other stuff done kind of activity. The Babe loved adding layer after layer of different colors onto the same flower, while I enjoyed the clean canvas of an unpainted flower. This craft was all about color mixing. What looks good with what? Try it and see…
I felt a bit like a painted flower after this painting session was over, too.
The stamping on paper came about a little bit accidentally. T
he Babe had painted one of the flowers a little too much and all I had on the table to blot it with was a piece of paper. Wow. It was so beautiful to see the texture of the flower transfer over to the paper. Try experimenting with placement of different colors to create different effects. I liked using a gradient of color from center to the outermost part of the petal. Those look like fireworks on paper.
You can stamp each flower multiple times, but after about 3 or 4 stampings, it starts to look a little wilted. If you’re not planning on keeping the flowers after the activity, keep stamping away. Otherwise, move on to a clean petal palette.
What do you have planned for Mother’s Day? My family is taking me and the mother-in-law out for a nice brunch up in the Sonoma County wine country. No cooking on Mother’s Day!!
