Bringing Fall to the Desert… With a Fall Tree Painting

Let’s be real here for a moment…  At 43 degree this afternoon, it doesn’t feel like fall here in Kuwait in the least.  So when I told Gracen that today was the very first day of fall, she glanced out the window, furrowed her brow and said, “It certainly doesn’t look like fall!’ in an almost accusatory tone.  Hah!  Gotta love her spunk.  I told her that she was right and that the desert is tricky when it comes to seasons, but back home in Canada, fall changes are beginning to happen.  We read a stack of fall-themed books which seemed to help convince her, then decided to create a fall tree in celebration.

To make things interesting, I decided we’d make our own leaf stamps using a few of these wedged cosmetic sponges I brought over in our craft stash.

They were a bit tricky to cut and certainly don’t look neat and tidy once done, but I figured that would add to the ‘authentic’ look of the leaves.

Next up, we prepared our paint colours.  Gracen offered up fall colour suggestions and together we used our primary coloured paints to create this palette.

With our supplies all ready to go, we got started with the part that Grae thought was pretty hysterical… A trunk and branches made using her arm and hand.

We were anxious to get started on adding the leaves, so we blasted the tree with my blowdryer for a few moments and we were set.

When Grae began adding leaves to the top of the tree, we were both surprised by how well our sponge stamps worked!  The fact that they started out as wedges made them easy for her to grasp and she was able to get 4 or 5 beautiful leaves out of just one paint dip.

Before long, it was time to add falling leaves because ‘in fall, leaves fall… you know that, right Mama?’

The tree began filling out nicely and Miss G paid particular attention to using all of the colours equally.

Here’s what it looked like when she declared the masterpiece done.  Beautiful, right?

She was so proud of this project that she wanted to hang it on her door immediately, explaining that it could dry just as well while hung up – hah!

For more fun not found on the blog, join us on Facebook or follow us on Instagram.