As a mother to a toddler I am doing everything I can to keep my little guy occupied. I thought it would be fun to do this rainbow and cloud banner. It’s super easy and you could play with the final outcome like putting googley eyes on the clouds or painting the rainbow in unusual colors. You can really go for it! An ombre rainbow would be awesome and each rainbow could be a different color… Just an idea.

Supplies Needed:

• rainbow template printable

• multi-purpose paper or thick white cardstock

• washable paint

• paintbrushes

• scissors

• tape (for keeping template in place)

• string

• whole punch

First I printed the rainbow template printable that I made in illustrator and taped it on our dining room table in front of my son, Hue. I made a palette for him because he will ultimately mix all his colors together and one for me so I can try to show him what we are trying to make.

I hand him a paint brush and let him go for it. Hue is strapped into a booster seat on a chair.  I don’t put him in a smock or cover the table because I use washable paint so it’s super easy to clean up. If I think the table needs some protection I put my rotary mat underneath. (I got this mat a long time ago and used a Michael’s coupon. I use it all the time for craft, cutting and painting at the dining room table.) If we are going out afterwards and I don’t want Hue’s clothes to get too messy I will just let him paint in a diaper.

I let him paint some rainbows. I paint some rainbows. His attention span is pretty limited at 17 months so I keep going as he comes and goes as he pleases. For the clouds I mixed a tiny bit of black paint into a lot of white paint for gray-ish clouds. You could told totally skip this part. You can’t really see the texture of the paint unless you look up close. I would just draw cloud shapes on cardstock and cut the cloud shapes out. I went to put googley eyes on the clouds but I hid them from Hue and I don’t know where I put them. So… no googley eyes for this craft project!

Thats it. This is perfect for a summer banner and also perfect for our time during quarantine. I hung one up in Hue’s bedroom and one up in the kitchen window. I made them double-sided so you can see the rainbows from the street. A little sunshine greeting.