Cotton Bud painted plates

When our kids were really small, we used to encourage their creativity by giving them ‘odd’ things to paint and make marks with… whether that be sticks, sponges, forks or cotton wool buds…

Having been to art school myself, I reflected on what I had enjoyed during my time there – and creating art with the unexpected was high up there – dunking sticks into paint, and drawing with cutlery – made it all the more fun and experimental!

So it’s back to these roots we turn, and have found the perfect example of how we could combine these fun experiments – and this could work for a class room of toddlers, right up to a room full of grown-ups at a craft retreat – these painted plates that sugar and cloth show here are really quite beautiful, and it really goes to show that picking the right colours, and minimising the marks can really make for actually quite beautiful patterned plates!

Another idea would be to experiment on paper plates – and think how lovely these would look on your instagram feed too!

So keep a lookout for plain-ish plates in Op Shops, and Charity Shops – who knew upcycling could be so fun!

These would be rather lovely as personalised gifts – get the child to mark their names on the back, (or hand print if they’re not ready for writing yet) – or indeed what a lovely idea for a very personal Mother’s Day gift – the ideas are endless… Needless to say, using cotton wool buds is the way to go for that delicate finish – and of course using cardboard biodegradable organic cotton buds means that you are caring for nature at the same time!

If you’d like to see more and read about sugar and cloth’s other creative ideas, do click here.