Have you ever been to Art Projects for Kids? If not, run there, right now, but be prepared to stay for a long, long time. Kathy Barbro is an experienced and gifted art teacher, and she shares over 600 projects on her blog. Whenever I need inspiration for kid crafts, she’s one of the first places I turn.

She shared a wonderful watercolor project for Winter Birch Trees. I’m going to let Kathy give you the actual directions, but I’ll share our enjoyable experience making our own trees. Michelle and I enjoyed the experience as much as the wee ones. The kids were able to do everything themselves except I cut numerous long strips of tape for Pixie, but she decided on the placement and did the rest herself. Oh, I also taped the paper to the table, both to hold it in place and to create the matted look border. I have plans for a number of other projects using this technique.

Taping to table, cutting strips, and making tape trees on watercolor paper.

Watercoloring the whole thing.

Sprinkling with Kosher salt.

Drying. If you are the impatient type… like one little Pixie we know… you can speed the drying with a blow drier!

Removing the tape.

Adding lines on tree, shadows and snow.

Gammy’s

Mommy’s

Bug’s

Fairy’s

Pixie’s

It’s your turn now 🙂