Easter Friends Paint Resist

My son is obsessed with paint resist projects. We started out with the ones you see all over – pieces of masking tape crisscrossed on the paper to make that cool stained-glass/psychedelic look. Then, he requested specific shapes – in his case, a shark. I checked all over Pinterest, but the only shape-oriented paint resist projects I saw used a Cricut and vinyl to make the design, or ripped up pieces of tape. We tried the ripped up tape, but I couldn’t get it to look shark-y enough for Alex.

I’m too cheap to go out and buy a Cricut, so instead, I tried to figure a work-around using my old friend painters tape. It worked really well, and a happy little boy made a watercolor card for his grandma. Success!

Easter Friends Paint Resist, Step-by-Step

Materials

paper plate

masking or painters tape

Sharpie

Easter Friends template

watercolors

hole punch

yarn

Instructions

Start by cutting out an Easter friend from the template. Then, lay out layers of masking/painters tape on a flat surface. They need to overlap quite a good bit for this to work.

Next, lay your Easter friend over the tape and trace around it with the Sharpie.

The next part is the only tricky part to this. You’re going to lift the tape all in one go, then cut out your traced image. I thought this would make my scissors all sticky, but it didn’t. I have done a shark, four Easter friends, and an octopus now, and my scissors are just fine.

Now, stick your homemade sticker to the paper plate (this also works with cardstock, but not construction or computer paper, just FYI). Be sure to press the edges down really well so that paint doesn’t seep through.

And now for the fun part. Let the kids go crazy with the watercolors, making sure to paint around the edges of the sticker.

Once the watercolors dry, you can peel up the sticker, cut off the edge, and punch a hole in the top. Use your yarn to create a hanger, and that’s it!