The Goodnight Gecko: A Process Art Craft Tutorial by @MakingWithMommy

Hello! My name is Emily from Making with Mommy and I am so excited to be sharing this fun craft inspired by The Goodnight Gecko. We absolutely loved this sweet little bedtime story and were so drawn to the bright yellow colors of the gecko family.

Our craft was inspired by the art in this story and would be fun for children of all ages! This is a process art craft, which means that you can give your kids some free-reign to decorate their geckos however they please! Process art is so important for helping your kids grow creatively, make their own decisions and take risks.

Read below for how to create your own Goodnight Gecko and visit us on Instagram @makingwithmommy to see more kids craft ideas!

Materials Needed: 

For the gecko:

• Cardboard
• Yellow acrylic paint
• Hot glue gun
• Yellow craft bits and pieces (such as buttons, pom poms, pipe cleaners, ribbon, yarn and beads!) Anything that you have on hand will work.
• 2 googly eyes

For the background:

• Black construction paper
• 1 pipe cleaner
• 1 pom pom
• Yellow paint

How To:

Create the gecko: 

Step 1: Draw your gecko shape onto your cardboard and cut it out! You can choose to free-hand this shape or look for an image online to trace. Your gecko can be as large or small as you like (ours is around 8 inches long).

Step 2: If you’d like, carefully peel off the top layer of paper from the cardboard to reveal the corrugated layer underneath. We liked the corrugated look for our gecko, but leaving your cardboard smooth would be perfectly fine!

Step 3: Paint your gecko yellow with acrylic paint and allow it to dry. 

Step 4: Using a hot glue gun, you and your kids can glue the yellow bits and pieces all over the cardboard shape to decorate it! There is no right or wrong way to do this - all of the yellow pieces together will create a fun, crafty gecko. Let your kids lead the way!

Step 5: Glue on the googly eyes and your gecko is complete! We glued some yellow pom poms underneath our eyes to give them more height.

Create the background:

Step 1: Bend a pipe cleaner into a star shape. To do this, I bent the pipe cleaner about 1 inch from the end, then bent the rest back in the other direction. This created the first of my five star points. Keep bending back and forth until you have created all 5 points. Glue the pipe cleaner star onto a pom pom. This will be used as a star stamp!

Step 2: Dip the pipe cleaner stamp into yellow paint and stamp it onto your black paper! Cover your sky with stars to create a beautiful backdrop for your gecko!

We hope you enjoy following this tutorial by @MakingWithMommy! If you'd like to purchase The Goodnight Gecko you can use promo code: GECKOCRAFT for 15% off your order. Enjoy!