You know you’ve been blogging for a long time when you think of an idea, Google it (to ensure it’s kind of creative and unique) and find you have already written about that topic. Not once, but twice. Ha!! An oldie but a goodie—and with a nature twist, today I bring you …

Nature Printmaking for Kids!

If you have been here for a while, you might recall my various printmaking art projects on the blog. We have made a version with hearts for Valentine’s Day and a snowflake printmaking craft as well. I believe the reason I tend to duplicate certain ideas is because I continue to duplicate my children. Ha! That did not come out right. But since I keep having new little ones to craft with, I keep breaking out those awesome, go-to crafts. So today, I wanted to share with you our latest version of printmaking.

Norah and I enjoyed this printmaking nature craft, and it was ideal for her to do all on her own. She is currently 2.5 and was super into this art project. The best part about this craft is that my bigger kids loved it as well. A craft that works for toddlers, preschoolers, and big kids is an immediate “got to share it on the blog” idea. 

Hence why it has been shared here so much. I tell you, these simple printmaking ideas really are fabulous.

For this nature version, we started by going for a little adventure outside to gather some nature items. 

We found leaves, grass, flowers, stems, small sticks, and some feathers. Anything along these lines works very well for this craft. You will want your nature objects to be able to be pressed between paper, so try to avoid rocks or pinecones. Though if you have a toddler, definitely don’t SAY you are avoiding rocks and pinecones, or the only thing you will have in your collection bin is rocks and pinecones … or is that just my toddler?

After we were happy with our collection of nature items, we headed inside for some painting. 

Now we have a rather old table that has lots of marks upon it, full to the brim with character, if you will. I don’t mind one little bit painting on this table as we have done so hundreds of times. So for this part of the craft we just painted right on the table with washable paint. For those of you with lovely tables or who would prefer, you can pop down some contact paper, a plastic tablecloth, or simply do the painting on a piece of paper.

Since we opted to paint right on the table,  I taped off a section about the size of a piece of paper and gave Norah the paints to get started.

We used lots of paints because we wanted her art to stay wet for the printmaking part of the craft. She had no trouble with this. Using lots of paint is her specialty. 

Once Norah was happy with her painting, we placed her nature items all over her painting. 

Next, we pressed a clean piece of white paper over top, pressing it into the wet paint. 

When the corner was carefully pulled up, the beautiful nature print was revealed!

With little Norah’s nature printmaking, because she did it all on her own, you couldn’t really see the details of the nature items. But this didn’t matter to her one little bit! She was proud as punch (not sure what that saying means at all, I’m realizing. I really should research these things before writing them … and yet … here we are).

However, with my older son’s art projects, you could see the details of the flowers and the leaves. Very cool!

I hope you and yours give this one a try! If you do, leave a comment below to let me know how it went.

If your little one enjoys learning about nature, you’ll want to grab this FREE Plant & Animal Life Cycle Printable! Get your copy right here:

Thank you so much for reading, 

Sarah