A Fun Way to Paint

I don't remember where I first saw this idea but I knew I had to try it. My kids love to paint. Camden loves tools. Combining them = genius. I had a kid sized thick paintbrush that I broke apart, used a little electrical tape, and boom, a battery operated paintbrush. I'll admit it was pretty fun to use!!

Car Painting

Camden loves his cars and trucks. But what he loves more is doing messy things with his cars and trucks. He does like to paint with paint brushes but I thought it would be fun for him to make tracks on paper with his cars. I was trying to incorporate letters into the activity by making letter tracks. He,however, just wanted to play!!!

Salt Painting

I saw this idea at Housing a Forest to do salt painting and thought that is a simple and quick art project that Alexandra and I could do while Camden napped. She loved it! First of all she could go crazy with glue on the paper, then dumping salt, but I think watching the paint spread over the salt impressed her most of all. I wish I would have gotten her reaction on video! 

The directions are easy:

1. Use a glue bottle and make an abstract design (or picture if you like) on your paper.

2. Spread table salt over the glue until it is completely covered.

3. Using watercolors just dab the paintbrush onto the salt and watch the color spread. Be careful not to press too hard as the glue is still wet underneath. * I made the paints super watery for her so that the water would just drip off of the brush onto the salt and she was less likely to "drag" her brush while painting. 

4. Let dry! 

Finger-painting with Pudding

Pretty much every day Alexandra wants to get out her paints, crayons, and other art supplies to paint and color. Well a few days ago she was asking about finger paints and since we don't have any at home I thought I'd make some vanilla pudding, color it, and let her go crazy. I remember as a kid using pudding to paint and the best part was that you could like your fingers too!

So first we made some pudding together and Alexandra added all of the ingredients and whisked it well. Once it thickened up I added some of my icing color to the pudding. I definitely added too much color to two of the cups and if we used the paint our hands were going to be stained blue and pink. So I tried again and added just a tiny dash - I forgot that a little bit of that icing color goes a super long way.

I thought this activity would be fun for both Alexandra, who is 4, and Camden, who is 17 months. I mean Camden is always trying to put the crayons in his mouth so I thought painting with pudding would be perfect. As Alex began Camden was just finishing up his lunch. I gave him a little pudding as part of his lunch and then got him out of his high chair and sat him at the table. Well he didn't really want to paint - he just wanted to eat it all!

For the paper I used Freezer paper with the shiny side being used as the painting surface. I figured that it wouldn't go through the paper that way and it worked pretty well. Plus, with a quick rub of a paper towel you have a new surface to paint on.

After seeing pictures of the kids painting you'll see why it was a not so normal middle of the day bath time!

 Supplies needed: Vanilla pudding and food coloring

 Alexandra mixing the color in

 Making some handprints

 Alex painting while Camden finishes his lunch in the background

 I put some on the paper for Camden to see what he would do

 He wasn't even using his hands - he was using his spoon! 

 Yum...I'll take a taste too

 And then he started using his hands 

 He painted more of his body than the paper

 Authentic Alexandra smile! 

 That was fun mom! 

 And now...bath time! 

All  fresh and clean! 

Friday Art Day

Today Alexandra wanted to do some more activities so I thought it would be a fun art day. She loves painting and this is definitely something we need to do when Camden is down for a nap! So after attempting to put him down (three times) he finally fell asleep and he slept just long enough for us to do a few painting projects. 

Car Painting

The first one we did was car painting. This was an idea I saw on Pinterest. Alex loves cars and she loves painting so it was win-win! I put out some tempera paint onto paper plates and laid down some freezer paper and away she went. I really got the freezer paper to use for making appliques in sewing but I found it works really well for the arts and crafts we do.  I love that there is a shiny side on the bottom so if she uses gobs of paint in one spot it won't rip through the paper. 

I demonstrated how to paint with a car and away she went (making varoooooom noises with every push and pull of the car!) 

Grape Painting

Next we did a take on marble or ball painting. When we were at the Harvest Festival in my hometown in September there was a craft stand and Alex was able to do this fun and free activity. I loved it because it kept the paint contained in a box. And when I said we did our take on it, well, we didn't have any marbles...but we did have grapes! So we used grapes and of course she knows (and just to make sure I told her) that we can't eat these grapes!

In case you've never done this before here is how you do it:

Step 1: get a box (I used a shoe box but it is probably better to use a bigger box or a lid of a bigger box.) Tape the paper in the bottom of the box. Put some paint either on a plate or in a plastic container and put a grape (or whatever sphere you are using!) into the paint. 

Step 2: Dump the colored grape into the box and move it all around! Do this with each of the colors. At the end we just added all of the grapes in and went crazy! 

Here is the finished product! Colorful and really not all that messy! 

Bubble Wrap Painting 

For Bubble Wrap painting I first squirted blobs of paint onto our craft cookie sheet. 

 Next, I had Alex use a paintbrush and paint the cookie sheet and mix the colors . Then I cut a piece of bubble wrap the size of the cookie sheet and had her press it down gently (bubble side down!)

Then, lift up the bubble wrap, again, gently unless you want to wear all of the paint! 

 You can't see it because of her arm but here she is saying "whoaaaaaaaaaaa, awesome!!!!!"

 I cut out letters for her name and she used bubble wrap to make the print beside her design.

 And finally she painted a ceramic piggy bank that my mom got her as a gift. It's a colorful pig to say the least! She was very proud of it. So proud of it in fact, that the pig is now resting with her on the blanket on the floor. And I'm sure it will be in her bed tonight too.