U is for Umbrella

Six months ago, I added a page to my blog called Children's Crafts from A-Z.  When I made it, I was missing 8 letters.  Since then, I've added a Jellyfish, a Koala, a Nest, a Quail, a Volcano, and an X-Ray, leaving only two missing letters.  Today I'm checking the letter U off the list.

I started by brainstorming U-words that make great crafts for young children.  Ukelele is ok, but many preschoolers and kindergarteners would guess that it was the more-familiar guitar, thus defeating the whole point of the alphabet craft.  Unicorn is ok, but not excellent.  Urchin? Hmm. There's a reason there are a LOT of umbrella crafts out there.

My absolute favorite umbrella craft is this one by Mama Jenn.  It is so cute and uses such a fun technique.  After gluing an umbrella shape to construction paper, she had the kids put dots of white glue all over it, then hung it up to dry.  Gravity made the glue run down, giving the look of rain.  Fun, right?!

I love everything about it except that the glue dries clear.  I thought the wet version looked just a bit cuter than the dried version.  White glue dries clear... what would dry an opaque white?  A-ha!  Enamel Accents!  

 

I cut out an umbrella from a pink floral patterned paper, added a brown umbrella handle, and glued both to grey construction paper.  I love the blue background of Mama Jenn's, but I thought the grey skies seemed more appropriate for an umbrella project.  I added drops of Enamel Accents everywhere except under the open umbrella.  I hung the paper vertically to dry.  I ended up with this:

I go back and forth about whether I prefer her blue sky or my grey, or her clear raindrops versus my white raindrops.  Overall, I think I like her project better... and it would certainly be more practical (and cheaper) to use white glue instead of Enamel Accents.  But I had a lot of fun experimenting and making my own version.  And I can finally scratch the letter U off the list!