Paint By Numbers Nativity

When I was asked to share a kid-friendly DIY Christmas project for Design Dazzle's "100 Ideas of Christmas Wonderful" going on right now... I kept thinking how fun (and educational) it would be to create my own little "paint-by-numbers" project for Ross. You may already know she's 3, so I had to start with something basic. My first thought was a nativity scene.

Step 1: A background: Since I needed to do something basic, I simply just drew straight lines across a piece of poster board and gave each space in between the lines a different number (which is hard to see in this picture).  Then, I gave each color we planned to use a number. 

Step 2: Ross painted the poster board by matching the correct "color" number to the "space" number. Let dry.

Step 3: I made a pattern of the nativity scene on paper then cut each piece out.

Step 4: I layed my pattern on the overhead and traced it with a black paint pen.

Step 5: Lastly, we both painted the inside black.

I happened to find this old frame for 8 bucks at the thrift store where the poster board fit almost perfectly.

After it was all said and done, I learned.... 3 year olds have the attention span of an ant. I'd go smaller next time. With that said, however, the project turned out to be a lot of fun. Obviously, the older the kid, the more detailed you could make this. I loved that we could do something so fun and learn about numbers and colors at the same time! I'd definitely do it again!


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