Stay Cool with Bleeding Art

Keeping cool in the summer is not much of a challenge here in San Francisco. Our summers are mildly warm at best. My biggest obstacle this summer is keeping my 20 month old's attention.

As a young girl growing up in the heat, my mom always provided us with fun activities to keep us occupied and keep us cool. One of my all time favorite activities was tissue spray art. Because I didn't possess a natural proclivity toward art nor a high tolerance for heat, tissue spray art was great as it forced me to be creative and the spray bottle wars with my sister were always memorable. The spray bottle wars momentarily thwarted my incessant whining about the heat, and overall gave my mom a much need break from us kids.

Here’s what you’ll need:

A spray bottle, newspaper, tissue paper, and plain white paper.

***Be sure to buy bleeding art tissue paper otherwise this project will not work***

Begin by lightly spraying your piece of paper with some water. Next, tear up your tissue paper into smaller pieces and lay on the plain white paper.


Continue to lightly spray your paper so the tissue paper will stick. The more water you add the more the tissue will begin to bleed it's colors.


Emi really enjoyed this project and could now get a job for a pest control company, as she is an excellent sprayer.

Have a snack and let your paper dry in the sun.


When the tissue has dried, peel off the tissue and throw away. Voila! You now have a great background/book report cover/greeting card/picture frame/whatever you want, made by your little one!


To check out more ideas on how to beat the heat this summer with your kids, be sure to head over to Carissa's Good N Crazy blog. Her tips and ideas are a must read!

-Kacey

***The aforementioned bleeding tissue paper was mistakenly not purchased by my loving husband, so I'm borrowing a photo from this lovely site.