Artwork - Banner

Make any banner of your choice. Our process has so many different craft processes it can be adapted to any theme your Bubu likes

What we made isn't as relevant but the process is. I feel it had so many different craft processes it can be adapted to anything your Bubu likes; princess, dinosaur, teddy, food, fish, plane, house you name it.

I have been intending to start crafting for a while with Bubu. We just did our first art work together and it took us this whole week. I know sounds like I could have started when he was one year old, I tried every month but mostly paint or glue would end up in the mouth after like a minute maximum. So all this while we only did coloring but my Bubu was not as absorbed as some other kids I have seen. I know a lot of mom's can pull off doing all fun crafts with your 12 month old babies, standing ovation from me, if you are that mom. Plus, I feel like, daily life is so hectic running around and doing things on schedule just so the home runs smoothly.

When I finally decided this Sunday, to spend some quality time making a art work with Bubu. My Initial plan was to make a Thanksgiving related craft like a turkey or something, as it is November. I showed him a cute turkey artwork I chose on Pinterest, "Should we do this!!!" Bubu was like "No, cars" "Aami cars karuya, Mommy" aka let's make cars Mommy in konkani. I tried two more times to show something else in the fall crafts but no he just wanted to make cars.

Well so be it. What we made isn't as relevant but the process is. I feel it had so many different craft processes it can be adapted to anything your Bubu likes; princess, dinosaur, teddy, food, fish, plane, house you name it.

Let's make it:

You will need

Card stock paper - white
Construction paper - colored
Glue stick
Poster paints 4-6 different colors
Paint brushes 4-6 different colors
Color palette
Pencil
Sharpie
Scissors
Sticking tape
Hot glue gun (optional)

Process

With each of these artworks, I choose to spread the time we spend on making the artwork, over the entire week. It helps to make art a fun activity, as kids have short attention span. Also, it's a lovely "quality time together" when we sit and make something constructive and creative. Artwork helps with hand and eye coordination and obviously gets everyone's creative juices flowing.

Each day of the week you can have one crafting activity that adds to beautify your artwork. We start on the weekend and spend a solid 20 to 30 minutes to create the base for the craft. The first day mostly has the most amount of work. And on the weekdays it's a commitment of only 5 to 15 minutes. Here's how we built our banner one day at a time.

Decide a theme

Ask your bubu what is it that s/he would like to make.
If they are too young to talk you probably know what's the most interesting thing for your Bubu, in this phase in their life. That is your theme.

Day 1 | Coloring | Time: 20 mins

Take a paper. We used a 1/4 of a card stock.
Ask bubu to choose at least 4-6 colors.
One-by-one squeeze a color in a color palette, take a paint brush and let your Bubu go to town with it on one paper. It's got lot of room for mistakes as its a single color on one big piece of paper.
Dedicate a area to dry these painted paper. It will need overnight drying as I noticed Bubu was applying some really thick coats of paint. As your Bubu finish's painting one paper ask him/her to take it to the drying area. My Bubu loved having this responsibility and got into the flow, so much so that he wanted to quickly finish painting so he could put that piece of paper in the drying area.

Day 2 | Draw | Time: 15 mins

If your Bubu is too young to draw then its your turn to take the lead and get immersed in art. Relive your childhood dream, I have met a tons of people who say that art class in school was so much fun that they always thought they would become artist or still wish to.
To involve your Bubu, ask Bubu what do they want you to draw. Eg: If your theme is easy like princess, homes, castles or like ours vehicles you can ask, "Which vehicle should we draw on this red paper?". But what if your theme is tough like 'teddy'. One idea is teddy can do different actions like eat, sleep, sit, play, laugh. Or it could be different body types of a teddy like tall, short, fat, thin, round, square. Get creative. You will find a way no matter what.
Outline your final pencil work with a black Sharpie. And cut along the outline.

Day 3 | Shape matching | Time: 15 mins

Ours got a little complicated because the windows I drew were complex shapes and small. However Bubu managed to get 80% of them, maybe because he loves puzzles.
I will suggest keep the shape simple like circle, triangle, square and let them be big to be held in their grip, especially if your Bubu is under 3 years old.
You can help by adding glue on the windows.
Ask your Bubu to stick the windows.
Have one shape at a time in their work area, as it's easy to get overwhelmed.

Day 4 | Building with glue | Time: 15 mins

The last thing left was tires. I cut some circles from black and some smaller circles in colored paper.
Bubu stuck the two circles together to make a tire. He was pretty amused how 2 separate circles stuck together make a tire. He was pretty proud of the tiers he made.
Finally stick the tire onto the car just like you did with the windows. Help your Bubu with applying glue and let them stick.

Day 5 | Make the banner | Prep: 15 mins

I did this step when Bubu slept (on day 4 itself) coz we wanted to take our awesome artwork to Montessorie next day as Friday's is 'Show-&-Tell day' in his class.
I had left some extra paper on top while cutting the cars, to fold over the chord to make a banner.
I also added some hot glue dots so it stays in place, as the cars were gliding and bunching up in the center.
If your Bubu is around, you can ask to hold the tape in place, or fold or everything if they are older.

The bonus was, in the morning when he saw his vehicle banner he was excited to go to school. He even made a game by matching the vehicle toys he has to the banner vehicles. It's nice to see how they get creative. World definitely needs people to be creative and be creative problem solvers. So get some fun creative juices flowing during your time together with Bubu, And share those awesome creative projects with me and my Bubu.