Free Flower Craft {Paint Sample Art}

My husband and I just purchased a 10-year-old home. New homes need nothing. Fifty-year-old homes need gutting. Ours needs thrice weekly runs to “The Depot.” You would think all that time in the home improvement stores and working on projects would rob me of crafting time and inspiration. In fact, just the opposite happened while I was standing in the paint department (I’m a regular).

Behr paint has a new line of colors for which they have created leaf-shaped paint samples. I’ve mentioned before how much I love using free paint samples in my former classroom and for crafting with my children and these new “leaves” are perfect for creating easy flower crafts with preschool girl.

Today while preparing dinner (yes, the craft is that easy that you can do it while you cook!), preschool girl and I created a tulip, “rainbow flower” and sunflower.

To create these cutie patootie flowers, you need only paint samples in varying colors and shapes, paint stir sticks (also available free of charge) and regular white glue.

The leaf-shaped paint samples have a little tab that will pop out allowing you to view other colors against the sample. For the purpose of this craft, you want to leave those in if you can. I had difficulty convincing preschool girl she did not have to pop them all out.

To begin, simply place the stir stick on a flat surface (make sure you are not doing this on your grandmother’s mahogany dining table!). Spread a little glue on the stick to get the first few leaves to adhere. Then begin placing more leaves around in a circle and adding glue when necessary.

Spread a final round of glue for the center of the flower, and you’re almost done.

Place a square (or round, if you wish to cut your own) paint sample card in the middle and add a leaf at the bottom.

To create a tulip, we simply used three leaves of the same color all pointing upward from the stir stick. For the sunflower, I used all yellow petals and a brown center. I wanted to make a sample of a poinsettia to share with The Shopping Mama readers, but preschool girl used all my red leaves to create a “super tulip.” You’ll notice that one is not pictured here.

That’s all for this craft, but if your mind works the way mine does (and if it does, I’m sorry), you are already thinking the leaves are perfect for other fall crafts.