Cut straw bits painting

Do your kids love cutting things? I know mine does, especially straws! Thank goodness those things aren’t expensive but I never really like any sort of wastage, so I usually keep what can be saved for another activity and guess what? I figured that I could use the cut-up straws from the contact paper process art activity we did for this activity – cut straw bits painting and I managed to work in some fine motor skills too for this activity! Read on to find out how!

Basic supplies needed to make ‘needles’ for threading the straw bits – just some tape, scissors and toothpicks.

Trim the sharp ends of the toothpicks and tape yarn to the toothpick, ensuring that the part where the tape is isn’t thicker than the straw otherwise you can’t string the straw bits together.

And the stringing begins:

After the stringing of the straw bits is done, get ready some paint in trays:

All excited and ready for painting with cut straw bits:

Dab the straw bits in the paint:

I gave her free rein as to how she wanted to paint using the string of cut straw bits. She started flicking the whole string up and down:

Then proceeded to roll the straw bits on the paper:

Taking more paint:

I’m starting to like how the painting looks, and hey, she painted her face too unknowingly…

I stopped her to take a photo when I thought the painting was more or less completed:

But well, as usual, I let her decide how to proceed next and she decided that she’d remove the straw bits from the yarn and use her fingers to hold the straw instead for painting. Here she is, rolling the straw in paint with her palm:

No prizes for guessing how it eventually turned out, judging from her hands!

Eventually the piece of paper turned different shades of green and guess what? I saved it for another activity we have planned for advent! Talk about being frugal!