Crayon Resist Star Art

Here’s another fun July 4th craft for kids! This crayon resist star art project is great to do just for the fun of it, or you can make the stars into a colorful bunting to hang up for the Fourth of July.

This art project is fun for preschoolers all the way up through middle schoolers. My 12 year old and I both really enjoyed making these patriotic stars!

Water color resist is such a cool art technique, and there are so many possibilities! Basically, the idea is that you draw with crayon first, and then paint over it with watercolor. Because crayons are made of wax, the watercolor paints will not penetrate the crayon. The paint will “resist” the crayon and the crayon color will continue to show.

It’s super fun to draw designs with white crayon and then watch them magically appear when you paint over them! But any color of crayon works well for this resist technique.

Supplies Needed for Crayon Resist Star Art:

• White paper or card stock – I prefer card stock but either works
• Crayons
• Watercolor paints
• Star Template
• Scissors
• Ribbon – optional
• Hole punch – optional

The star template file has stars in many sizes! We used the medium sized stars on page 2 of the file for this project.

We found it easiest to draw and paint on the stars before you cut them out.

Draw designs with a red, white, or blue crayon. If you use white, it’s hard to see what you’re drawing, but just keep going. It will turn out great!

Then paint your stars with red and blue watercolor paints. We really didn’t want the red and blue to combine and make purple since that didn’t fit with our patriotic color scheme, and it really worked out well.

Paint your stars and let them dry. Here are some fun design options! You can draw lines, stripes, fireworks, tiny stars, swirls, and more. Paint each star a solid color, or use more than one color.

Once the paint is dry, cut out your stars. Now it’s time to do something with them!

Here are some ideas:

• Attach magnets to them and put them on the refrigerator
• Glue them to white or blue paper to make a July 4th card
• Make them into ornaments to hang on a decorative tree
• Scatter them on your dining table as decoration

We decided to make a bunting/garland for our fireplace.

I punched a hole in each star and then tied the ribbon to each one. You’ll want to cut a very long piece of ribbon. You have to just estimate the total length of ribbon you’re going to need and then go for it because you can’t tie the stars to the ribbon while it’s still attached to the roll. It’s better to cut too long of a piece than to run out!!!

The completed bunting looks so festive on our fireplace mantle!