How to do credit card scrape art with your kids 

*this project is in partnership with Tulip

Dabbing paint on some paper and then scraping it to get some super secret, fun, surprise results? YES PLEASEEEEE! 

Honestly, this is one of those DIY’s that doesn’t just “sound fun” it actually IS FUN, especially with your kiddos. In this project you will have a chance to get messy, try something new and encourage your kiddos to do the same AND AND AND you will walk away with some colorful, happy prints that you can frame in your home 

If you can guess I am a HUUUUUUGE advocate for kids getting dirty and messy and allowing their creativity to just RUN….whether it’s outside playing or with a table full of art supplies or even just as they use their words to write or draw or make up stories. Imagination and creativity are SO HIGHLY encouraged in our house! 🙂 

And this project is sorta like an intro to letting kids run with their painting ideas without making a HUGE mess BUUUT ending up with some awesome and super fun prints when done. And of course you can take the project to the next level with writing or drawing over top of your scrape art, or cutting up your paper to make notecards or envelopes or gift tags too! Really, the sky is endless on how to use this technique! 🙂 

MATERIALS:

• A pack of this amazing Tulip soft matte paint 
• Some cardstock or thicker paper (you want to use thicker paper that can “hold” the texture/richness of the paint, otherwise your paint will curl and buckle)
• An old gift card or credit card to scrape
• Some washi tape or something to hold down the paper while scraping
• Some clean up supplies like paper towels or hand wipes, etc 🙂

INSTRUCTIONS:

1. Grab all of your supplies and choose your work area – the one thing we quickly noted is that our table is a rough wood finish, so I just grabbed a piece of white foam core that we had lying around for a completely smooth surface (I didn’t want lots of texture in our scraping) 🙂

Note, that the Tulip soft matte paint can stain clothes, so it might also be a good idea to throw on a paint shirt or smock so that there is no hindering creativity! 🙂 

2. With some wash tape, tape down your paper so that it is secure on a flat surface (a clipboard would also do if you have one of those around)! 🙂 

3. NOW PAINT + SCRAPE + PAINT + SCRAPE!!!!!

aka, the fun part 🙂 

Here are some tips when painting + scraping with this awesome (super happy) Tulip soft matte paint! 🙂 

• Start anywhere on the paper. You can put dots or blobs anywhere on the paper you want – know that wherever you blob or day, there will be a little circle that sticks as the “starting point” to the color spread
• Use only a small small dab. A little goes a long way, especially because we are scraping it, so essentially you only need a super thin layer when scraping for the color to show up 
• Once you have enough paint/dabs/blobs on the paper, it’s time to scrape – begin at the top of the paper and scrape in one swift motion – ONE SWIFT MOTION 🙂 
• Scrape off the paper or to the edge of the paper if you can……knowing that there will be all of the excess paint on your scraping card (credit card or gift card) leftover. 
• Have a paper towel or baby wipe handy and wipe off your scraping card after each scrape – I didn’t want to mix my colors or overlaps on each section
• Feel free to play around with the scraping – this is the “surprise” of the artworks – how the paint dabs work together and what motion you scrape in (rainbow arc, squiggle back and forth across the paper, criss crossing overlapping, or just from top to bottom….the sky is the limit)
• PS – this soft matte paint is awesome to work with – I painted some old overalls with these same paints (see HERE) and they work just as awesome on fabric as it does on paper for this project 🙂 Smooth and full of color 🙂 

4. Set each finished painting aside and allow to complete dry (about 2-3 hours for us….it’s a thin layer so they dry relatively fast TBH) 🙂 Once they are dry, cut the paper down to size for framing, for a bookmark, for a notecard or envelope or whatever you have your heart set on! 🙂 

Have fun + happy making with your kiddos! 🙂