Cherry blossoms
This craft is always a hit- suitable for ages 5 and up. You will need:
Heavy white paper
large straws
scissors
ecoline ink or acrylic paint
cork
small sponge for painting, or late brush, H20
chinese black ink
Optional: pink tissue paper
With either ink or acrylic paint, make a degradee from dark to light blue. Using your sponge,paint a intense band of color at the top of your paper, and then dab with a little water to gently soften the color all the way to the bottom. Let it dry.
Chinese ink is intense black, the same ink calligraphers use. A little goes a long way. Before we use it, first trim your straws down to less than 4 inches. Next, using a paint brush, make a small resevior of ink where you want the base of your tree to be. Working quickly, sort of get behind the ink blot by blowing at the bottom of it with the straw. Blow in an upwards motion. The ink will create thetrunk of your tree. Follow the line as far as you like, and where you want a new branch to begin, do the same as before-begin with a small ink reservoir and blow to create new growth. The results are random but you can manipulate it somewhat with practise. Let dry. Put out a dollop of both red and white paint and drip your cork into each.Without blending, stamp where you would like the blossoms to be. If you like, add extra depth by gluing on twisted bits of tissue to bring out the flowers in your cherry trees.
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