Easy Printmaking Activities for Children Using Everyday Objects

Every time your child places his hand in wet cement or draws a figure in the frosted windows of a car, he is making a print in its most basic form. Printmaking is the process of transferring an image from one surface to another.

For a rainy day activity that doesn’t require any special materials, print making is a fun way to introduce your children to working with patterns and shapes.

Supplies needed

For all printmaking activities, you will need a few basic supplies. I use tempera and water color paints for our printmaking activities, sheets of construction paper, white craft paper, a paint bush with a 1/4″ bristle width, several small microwave dinner trays to use as a palette, scissors, and paper towels for blotting. Ink pads in an assortment of colors is also nice for creating more detailed prints.

For scrapbookers, be sure to use archival paint and archival papers.

Vegetable and fruit prints

Remember making potato stamps as a child? A simple stamp can be made by slicing a potato in half, and inserting a cooky cutter into the cut side to a depth of 1/4 inch. Use a knife to slice away the potato from the outside of the cutter to create a stamp. Don’t have cooky cutters? A stamp can also be created using a paring knife and carving a simple design.

For something just a little different, make a stamp from a sliced fruit or vegetable. Vegetables such as mushrooms, celery, and green peppers make interesting prints when sliced across the center. Sliced oranges and limes also make terrific stamps, especially when sliced cross wise to reveal the sliced “sections.”

Vegetable and fruits stamps work best if cut 24 hours before this activity and allowed to air dry.

Making a stamp from cardboard

Your children can use the flaps from a corrugated cardboard box to create some more interesting stamps. We cut houses, cars, trees and other interesting shapes from these small pieces of cardboard. To make a handle for a cardboard stamp, hot glue a lego piece or small wooden block to the back of the stamp. Hot glue is reversible and can be peeled away from the blocks when your child is finished stamping.

To add interest to the cardboard stamp, peel away the outer layer of brown paper to reveal the corrugation beneath.

Prints from nature

Leaves, bark, nuts, pine cones, grasses, feathers, and seed pods can also to be used to create fun prints. Dip the item in tempera paint and stamp a pattern on a sheet of construction paper.

Body prints

With this activity, children can use their hands, feet, toes, and fingers to press designs into paper. For fingers, regular ink stamps work best since they show all the tiny details of a fingerprint. At our house, these finger and hand print designs are turned into funny looking animals and people.

Foam and sponge prints

Large stamps can be made from pieces of cushion foam. These stamps are very easy for children to cut with a pair of safety scissors. To use, dip the foam in the tempera paint or use a brush to apply the paint to the sponges surface.

Instead of cushion foam, try using different types of sponges such as kitchen or artists sponges.

Rag prints

Wadded up rags, plastic bread bags, and paper lunch sacks also make a great prints. Many home decorators use this technique to add interest to their painted walls, but this is also a fabulous way to add back ground texture and pattern to a plain white page. To make a print, scrunch the item into a small ball, dip into paint, and apply to the surface of the paper.

Block printing

Block printing is perhaps one of the oldest forms of printing. With block printing, a design would be carved into a piece of wood, inked, then stamped on a sheet of paper. While linoleum blocks can still be purchased at most art supply stores, a safer technique for children doesn’t involve any carving at all.

To create a block print design, have your child glue a design made of yarn on the back of an old piece of scrap wood. Dip the block into paint, and apply to the paper.

Once your child has master the technique of printmaking, have him decorate some items around the house. We’ve used these techniques to craft personalized gift wrap and greeting cards, decorate a toy chest, and even to create a border along a wall.