Planting a Rainbow Flower Craft

Planting a Rainbow by Lois Ehlert is one of our favorite Springtime books. Not only do we check it out from our local library every spring but we make a craft to go along with it. This year we made a beautiful rainbow flower garden out of one of my favorite craft materials, cupcake liners.

The story is about a Mother and child who plant flower bulbs, seeds and plants and watch them grow into a rainbow of colorful blooms. I love how there is a page for each color and corresponding flowers. We get to talk about all the different flowers that we’ve seen in our yard and neighborhood and identify them by name.

Here is how my 3 year old’s artwork turned out. So bright and cheerful!

Materials you will need:

12″ x 12″ blue cardstock paper
12″ x 12″ green cardstock paper
12″ x 12″ piece of bubble wrap
green paint
paint brush
6 Cupcake Liners in red, orange, yellow, green, blue and purple
2″ yellow paper circles
green paper to cut stems
scissors
glue

Directions:

1. Start by painting the bubble side of your bubble wrap with green paint. Place your green cardstock paper on top of it and press down firmly all over to transfer the green paint to your paper. Peel off your green paper to reveal your bubble wrap pattern. Set the paper aside to dry completely and continue with the rest of your craft.

2. Press your cupcake liners out flat. Cut slits around each cupcake liner to make petals. Make sure to stop your cut at the center circle line of the liner. (This is great scissor practice for preschoolers. You might need to help hold the cupcake liner for your child if they are new to cutting.)

3. Cut green stems out for all six of your flowers out of green paper.

4. Glue the the red, orange and yellow cupcake liners at the top of your blue cardstock paper. Then glue the flower stems underneath them.

5. Glue the green, blue and purple flowers on the next row and the stems underneath them. If your stems are too long, trim them with your scissors.

6. Glue your 2″ yellow circles in the middle of your cupcake liners. I used a circle punch to punch out all my circles. If you don’t have one, you can just cut out your own, freehand them, or have your children cut out their own circles. Pom-poms or buttons would also be a fun option for the centers.

7. To finish the craft, cut off a section from your bubble wrap printed page, and glue it to the bottom of your paper to create “grass”.