If you want little artists to be inventive and creative, make sure that the activity that we give the children is going to produce that. Creativity is messy and you have to buy into that as a value. The first place to start is to value creativity in your own life. Seeing the beauty in nature, looking into the crystal on an icicle hanging from a branch. You can give a child the love for observing nature.
Art is beyond cutting and pasting and drawing.
It's an attitude that comes from what you feel and see around you. Over the years, I have made several different types of baskets for the kids to take home with their eggs and goodies. You take two sheets of large construction paper and cut in circles the size of a large record or dinner plate. Take a paint brush and paint liquid starch generously on one of the circles. Take the other circle and place neatly on top of the starched circle.