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The Craft Train

Crafty ideas for kids and parents

You are here: Home / Crafts and Activities / Art ideas / Wattle art stamping

Wattle art stamping

July 23, 2020 By Kate Leave a Comment

This post may contain affiliate links. I may receive commissions for purchases made through links in this post at no cost to you.

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Create some gorgeous stamped wattle art using cotton buds (Q-tips) and sponges cut into a leaf shape.

This is a simple Australian art project for kids which makes a great wall display. It’s also perfect for this time of year – when the Winter wattle trees are flowering. 

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easy wattle art project for kids – make some stamped wattle

Australia’s national flag is blue, white and red but our national colours (worn by competing sports teams and athletes) have always been green and gold. Why? because that’s the colour of our national flower, Wattle. 

Where we live wattle is full flower right now, adding a splash of golden yellow to winter gardens and bushland. Even if you’re one of those poor unfortunates who get all sneezy around them (like my daughter does), you’ve got to admit they smell and look beautiful.

In my ignorance, I’d always thought that late Winter/early Spring was “Wattle season”, but that’s just in our local area of Sydney/Blue Mountains. I’ve since realised that there are over 1000 different species of Wattle across the continent and they also flower in Spring, Summer and Autumn. In fact, somewhere in Australia, Wattle is flowering no matter what time of year it is.

My daughter and I created these Wattle artworks when we were stuck at home during the lockdown period. It was fun, quick, easy and the prints really brightened up our wall. 

This stamping art activity is simple enough for younger kids to have a go at too (I’d say four and up).


How to make stamped wattle art

You will need

  • Cotton buds
  • Kitchen sponge
  • paper – a piece of coloured paper works well as a background but white will do
  • paint in deep yellow and green
  • paintbrush

How to

Cut some long, narrow leaf shapes from the kitchen sponge. You only need one per person doing the activity.

leaf shapes for printing

Set out your materials including the paint, brush, leaf shapes and cotton buds.

paper and paint set up for printing

Begin by painting a forked branch, leaving a few gaps in the branch to stamp wattle later.

Take a bunch of cotton buds and dip them in the yellow paint, and paint this into the gaps. Also dot some around the branch.

Dip the leaf shape into green paint and print some leaves around the wattle branch. If you have some backing paper behind your art paper to catch the mess you can print the leaves over the edge of the page. I’ve used baking paper but recycled newspaper will do.

finished wattle flower print art

All done! 

finished wattle prints

We think it worked better on the darker coloured paper than the light paper. If you’re using white paper for the background try mixing a little bit of orange into your yellow to make it more visible on the paper. 

stamped wattle art project for kids

You can also create cards with wattle flower art printed on the front of them. My daughter made one for her Nanna for Mother’s Day.

Wattle art stamping

stamped wattle art project for kids

Easy Wattle art stamping activity for kids

Prep Time 10 minutes
Active Time 10 minutes
Total Time 20 minutes
Difficulty very easy

Materials

  • Cotton buds
  • Paint in green and golden yellow
  • kitchen sponge
  • coloured construction paper or card stock

Tools

  • paint brush
  • scissors

Instructions

    1. Cut some long, narrow leaf shapes from the kitchen sponge. You only need one per person doing the activity.
    2. Set out your materials including the paint, brush, leaf shapes and cotton buds.
    3. Begin by painting a forked branch, leaving a few gaps in the branch to stamp wattle later.
    4. Take a bunch of cotton buds and dip them in the yellow paint, and paint this into the gaps. Also dot some around the branch.
    5. Dip the leaf shape into green paint and print some leaves around the wattle branch.

Notes

You could use this technique to make cards and gift wrap too

© Kate
Project Type: printing / Category: Art ideas

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  • Kate GronoKate GronoCrazy Craft Fanatic

    I’m basically a big kid who never grew up and still loves to muck around with paint, glitter, glue and toilet rolls. With the crafts shared here on this website I’m hoping to give other parents and carers inspiration to get crafty with their kids at home – make our projects, or use them as a source of inspiration to spark ideas of your own. When it comes to crafting no rules apply!

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