Rainbows and other colorful ideas from designer paper towels

I am trying to do at least one creative idea a week so I can contribute to the McKLinky over at Mom Tried It! You can go there too and see the action!

I have seen others make this type of activity on their blogs so when my nieces came over, I thought we should try it all out. What we discovered is that this activity (which we now call designer paper towels) is an idea that just keeps on keeping on. So here it goes:)

Setting up
I set out...

• Newspaper (to keep from ruining my table)
• Paper towels (the bounty rectangles/half sheets)
• Paper plates (to put under the paper towels while wet)
• Washable markers (bright colors work best)
• Black permanent markers
• Spray bottle with clean water

The girls use the black permanent marker to draw items like their name or a work that they didn't want to wash out and the colored washable markers for adding color. I had a heck of a time scrounging up markers around the house! Who would have thought a preschool teacher doesn't have markers at home!

Now the girls just started to color on the paper towels. Some are more advanced drawings and others are just colorful scribbles and designs.

    



Then we sprayed all the designs with water. We found out that at first the colors didn't look like they will spread out that much so the girls added a lot of water. But actually, it just takes a bit for the water to soak in and then the colors will begin to bleed out. No need to over soak it!


















The girls love this and they made a ton of them. After each paper towel was sprayed then we set them out to dry overnight. This is when I discovered all the wonderful things you could do with these....


Hang on to all the extra designer paper towels and see what you can do next!

A name plate: tape was added around the edges!

A name scroll with tape and a straw!

Tye Dye Quilt: Several sheets of designer paper towels taped together on the back with name in the center.

The left over designer paper towels were then cut into little squares to try a few more activities!

We thought they would make cool looking rainbows!

Just glue the designer paper towel squares on a sheet of construction paper!

Or add it to a sheet of writing paper then have the children print out a sentence or dictate to you a descriptive sentence.

And one more....


But it will be in tomorrows post - this one is getting way too long. So see the really cool shamrock idea tomorrow! 


By the way: If you tried this idea too, why don't you leave a link in the comments to your post. I can't remember where all I saw the tye dye paper towels at... But thanks to everyone who had this great idea!