Let's Make Nature Art! - raising a blessing

We absolutely love going on nature walks. For me, there’s nothing quite as rejuvenating as being outside and letting my senses take in all of the sights, smells, and sounds of the great outdoors. So, naturally, when I saw this idea floating around social media to create art out of things you find in nature, I just knew that we had to try it out! (…and I’m so glad that we did!)

This project not only ended up being fun and creative, but it also brought the whole family together around the table because everyone wanted to try one!

Before we get started, I wanted to mention a few small (but important) notes:

Make sure that you are permitted to remove the “materials” from your selected location. Some parks, neighborhoods, and other locations have strict guidelines on removing wildflowers, foliage, and even pine cones from the ground. Make sure you “know before you go!”
If you plan on using clip art for your project, make sure you read the copyright information and follow the rules regarding their use, especially before posting your photos. (See the end of this blog post for our line art attributions.)

There’s not a lot of explanation needed for this project, so I’ll just dive into the quick step-by-step instructions and show you our final results….

Suggested Materials:

Your Nature Materials Will vary based on your location, but think leaves, flowers, sticks, pine needles, pine cones, cattails, etc.
Card stock Optional, but I find that the heavier paper will hold your materials better.
Hot Glue Gun Optional, but if you want to snap pics, it often helps hold it all together.
Line Art Clipart or Hand-Drawn Outline/Stencil Again, optional, but for little artist (and big ones too), it can provide a template for the layout of your materials.
Scissors, Crayons, Etc …and any other supplies that you might enjoy using to add some additional character to your nature art.

Step-By-Step Instructions:

Step One: The first thing that we did was brainstorm what kind of animal or thing that we wanted to create. You don’t have to do this first, but it helped us select better materials as we were hiking/walking.

Step Two: Go for a hike or walk and collect your materials.

Step Three: (Option A) Print out your clip art on card stock. Keep in mind the size that you want to print based on the size of your materials. You do not have to use clip art. We used it for our little guy as a template to help him lay out his materials. Just to reiterate here…make sure that you follow the copyright rules of whatever images that you choose. (Option B) Draw a stencil or outline of what you intend to create on your cardstock. Again, keep in mind the size that you want to draw based on the size of your materials. This is a helpful template to little people when choosing the placement of their nature materials.

Step Four: Have fun “designing” your art! Truly, this was one of our favorite art projects to date! Coming up with ways to arrange our materials to create our creatures.

Step Five: Snap a quick pic of your art and share it! We’d love to see your nature art, so drop us a photo in the comments!

Optional Step Six: Glue your art down so that you can enjoy it for longer. Quick tip: I suggest snapping a pic before you proceed to this optional step just in case you don’t like the results after the glue.