All Nana’s love a homemade gift right? Well this year for my mum (my son’s Nana) I decided to try something new. Having worked in the early childhood industry for many years there isn’t much I haven’t given a go but the sticky tape/canvas art idea is one of them. Mum’s birthday is in the first few days after new years so she’s always felt it got lost in the holiday season so I wanted to help my son make something special for her.

I started out by buying 2 canvases from our local cheap store (in case the first one didn’t work out) and a paint pack from K-Mart. I then set to spelling out NANA on the canvas with tape. I used normal sticky tape and it stuck fine.

I didn’t centre it very well the first time and I’m a girl who loves symmetry so it HAD to be fixed. This was probably the most difficult part of the whole process but with care and patience I managed to peel each letter off and move it slightly left to where it needed to be. Once the letters were stuck down I tried to be clever and use a spoon to put paint on the canvas for my son. The spoon was too big so I just tipped little bits of paint all over the canvas for my son to fingerpaint. I added white in between it all to make some great tones.

Once I was happy with how much paint was on there I called my son over to paint. With a smock on I thought he would dive right in but he was really hesitant. I had to role model what to do and he slowly warmed up to the wonderful feeling of squishy gooey paint between his fingers. By the end he was loving it, he got annoyed when I said it was finished!

The next part was a challenge – taking the tape off. Should I do it while the paint was wet or wait for it to dry? I thought waiting until it was dry would be the better option but I was just too impatient. Using some tweezers I very carefully pulled the tape off, trying not to smudge the paint. I was successful but it was a bit stressful. In future I will be patient and wait for it to dry.

A beautiful, well received piece of art for Nana’s birthday! Because he loved it so much we’ll be making one for everyone! Everyone loves a little extra sparkle so we painted some gold glitter over the top and as a special touch I put a photo of my son making it on the back of the canvas as a keep sake.

Amy xx