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My little creatives are always picking up sticks. Are yours too? Why not take some home with you to paint?  This is such a great activity. Its simple, calming, and can make your garden or home look beautiful.

Parents make sure to paint a stick yourself, it will truly make you feel a bit happier. 🙂

Painted Stick Supplies:

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This list contains affiliate links.

• Sticks – big, small, fat, thin, smooth, rough, straight, windy, a variety is always fun.
• Paint – We used acrylic paint, but you can use whatever you have
• Paint Brushes 
• Water Bowl 

PARENT TIP: If you decide to use acrylic make sure your kids have paint clothes on, or clothes you don’t mind getting paint on as acrylic can be hard to remove from clothes, or if its warm enough have them strip down to their skivvies.

Make It:

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1. PAINT your sticks a color.

2. RINSE your brush.

3. REPEAT steps 1 & 2!

4. DISPLAY your sticks! Put them in the yard, or in a vase inside.

TRY THIS: Try different ways of painting your sticks: circles around the stick, dots, lines up and down, follow the pattern of the wood, painting half and leaving half natural, or try painting the whole twig one color, or lots of different colors etc…

DISCUSS: all the different variations in your sticks, talk about height, width, straightness, knots, bits branching off, patterns in the wood.

FOR FUN: Each stick has a story, take a minute or even a few seconds to really look at your stick and see what story you can find, where has your stick been? how bad are its battle wounds? maybe its encountered an animal? Or maybe it looks like an animal. Share your stories with each other and see what comes up.

My Take Away:

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I was having quite a stressful day when I did this activity with my little creatives, but as soon as I took the time to paint a stick with them my day shifted – suddenly I was happy again. 🙂  Taking a minute for myself, for my inner artist and spending time looking at nature, and following the patterns of the stick with my paintbrush, deciding what colors to paint each crevice helped me to feel calm, fulfilled and happy. Sometimes, all it takes is the little things… like painting sticks!

Do Tell: Leave a comment below

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• Did you paint a stick yourself? How did you feel?
• What did you do with your sticks after you painted them?
• I’d love to hear what stories your sticks told!