Yvonne Glasgow
The next time you’re in the creative mood, skip a trip to the craft store. Your kitchen is packed with crafting tools just waiting for your artistic whims. Here are five ways to turn kitchen items into artist’s tools.
Use Potatoes as Stamps
There’s no need to invest in stamps of simple shapes like hearts and stars. You can make them yourself if you have some potatoes in the kitchen. You can get a little more elaborate with your potato stamps if you have good carving skills.
Sponge Paint with Kitchen Rags
Sponges, towels and rags, and even crumpled up paper towels can all be used as painting tools. With actual kitchen sponges, you can cut them into shapes to get cool designs. The other items can be bunched up and leave strange patterns that may sometimes look like shells, flowers, or just a blob of color if you’re going for a more abstract look.
Use Coffee or Tea as a Stain
If you’re trying to make your artwork look old and worn, you can stain your canvas or paper using coffee or tea. It gives it an older look. If you use more coffee in the water or steep your tea longer, you can even get crinkled/charred look to the edge without actually having to light anything on fire.
Use Foods for Paint and Dyes
You can create natural dyes and paints by crushing foods, boiling them, or steeping them in water. You can use these concoctions to paint on paper or canvas, or you can use them to soak clothing and material in to change colors.
Different foods create different colors, and sometimes not the colors you’re expecting. If you’re experimenting with your kids, it’s fun to make a chart and predict what the color outcome will be.
Create Mosaics with Dried Goods
In elementary school, you may have created art with uncooked macaroni noodles. Now is the time to do that again. You can use noodles of all shapes, sizes, and colors. Use lentils in different colors, dried beans of all kinds, and even rice. The video above shows how to make cool mandalas with dried beans, but the possible uses uncooked noodles, beans, and other dry goods are limitless.
Don’t overlook the kitchen the next time you’re looking for arts and crafts supplies. There are a lot of items that will help you create fun and creative art.
