Toddler Craft: Exploring Textures

We did a quick craft this morning - I wanted to explore textures, Eden wanted to make a flower - this was the result! 

I keep a big box full of all sorts of materials and boxes for craft activities, so the first thing we did was have a rummage through to pick out different textures to use in our collage. Eden picked out some blue card, and I drew a big flower shape on. She then stuck on the scraps of different textures and I introduced some new words to her to describe them.

 The finished 'masterpiece'!

Pumpkin Seed Play: Lightbox and Owls

Earlier in the week we carved a HUGE pumpkin. I kept all the 'innards', making various recipes with the pumpkin flesh, and drying out the seeds for Eden and I to play with and to use for craft.

Today we did some mixing and pouring of the pumpkin seeds on top of the lightbox:

Then we made a Pumpkin Seed Owl. I drew the outline of an owl on some card and cut it out, and left the rest to Eden (with a bit of guidance from me)... she was as delighted as usual to be let loose on the glue!

Eden then wanted to listen to our 'Owl Babies' CD, and dance around the living room with blankets as capes or 'wings' pretending to be Mummy Owl and Baby Owl. Of course I joined in the merry fun, cape and all, although it's probably for the best I didn't take a photo....!

Picture Post: Sponge Shape Painting

VHC Art

Eden and I regularly read the Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle. It's a book I particularly enjoy reading because I remember it from my own childhood, I loved Saturday's page with all the brightly coloured food! There aren't many popular children's books out there that can boast a 40th Anniversary like The Very Hungry Caterpillar can! I'm also a follower of Eric Carle's blog.

Today after reading the book, Eden and I made our very own Very Hungry Caterpillars. I have some easy painters, that are very similiar to Bingo Dobbers, and if you've not come across them before they're basically like paint pens - very easy to use and great when you don't fancy a messy painting session. I've also been saving some freebie VHC stickers until Eden's been old enough to appreciate them and 'stick' them herself.

Our caterpillars were a joint effort of dotting together, the stickers were mostly done by Eden with a bit of help from me suggesting where she stuck them.

Here's the finished result:

Holding up the VHC book with finished painting on the table

  She loves her caterpillar painting and proudly carried it around the house once it was finished!

Bottle-Flower Stamps

Have you ever thought that the bottoms of many drinks bottles actually look like pretty flower petals? I've discovered that they make cool stamp-prints when painting.  

I'm also learning (and I may be slow on the uptake here) that the more painting and craft we do together, the more Eden learns to copy me - like she is understanding that we're doing something specific rather than random! 

Starting with the outer petals before leaving to dry...

Using the bottle top and some yellow paint to create the middle of the flower

This paper kind of lost the flower-theme but Eden was having a blast!

One of the finished paintings that we did together

Baking Tray Wall Art

I love quirky things, and this is definitely one of them! Eden is 19 months, and our fridge is already cluttered with her artwork - I'm just such a proud Mum and love to display the finished articles of fun painting and art sessions that we do together. As she gets older, I'm sure the volume of paintings will only increase as she brings home her school artwork.

I think it's so important to display children's artwork, to affirm their efforts and promote self esteem in their abilities - encouraging the thinking that 'Mummy thinks it's good enough to put on display at home'.

I came across a site the other day called Budget Wise Home, and found a great idea for displaying kids' paintings - using the humble baking tray! Not only does it tick the box for displaying children's artwork, it's also really fun, still looks pretty funky on it's own without the art, and brightens up a dull corner in our dining room. Don't believe me? Here's a photo....

So why use a baking tray? For it's magnetic value! The baking tray frames the paintings wonderfully, and as the painting is held there by magnets, you can change them as often as you like.

Method
You'll need a selection of baking trays (I went to Wilkinsons and spent around £4 for the 3. Tip: Take a magnet with you to check they are actually magnetic before you purchase). You'll also need some spray paint (again Wilkinsons have a good range at a reasonable price).

I did 2 layers of spray paint on the top side only, allowing it to touch-dry in-between layers. I was going to spray the bottom side too but didn't think it would be worth it in the end, and up on the wall you can't tell.

Once dry, after roughly 3 hours, you can attach them to the wall. I used 'Command' small picture hanging strips, basically double sided tape but designed to come off the wall without leaving any marks. B and Q sell packs of 12 for a couple of pounds, and I used 4 on each baking tray. I was surprised at how well they stick to the wall, and its a bonus that they won't leave any marks if/when I decide to take them off.

I left the baking trays for 24 hours before attaching magnets and pictures to be certain that the paint was fully dry. Here's the finished results:

This was a really fun and easy project to do at home with great results! We have them in our dining room, but if you have wall space in the kitchen, being baking trays they fit perfectly with the kitchen-theme!

10 Tips for craft and painting with a baby/young toddler

15 months, experimenting with a paintbrush!

I love doing artwork with Eden! She may only be 19 months (yesterday) but we have a lot of fun together, she learns from the process, and we create loads of special memories and masterpieces that go in her memory box.

I thought I'd write down a few tips that I've learnt from doing painting and crafts with a very little one:

1. First and foremost remember little ones have very short attention spans so don't go into it expecting more than 5 - 10 minutes before they want to change activity
2. Plan and prepare beforehand - get everything, and I mean everything ready before you sit your little one down
3. If inside, put a shower curtain down to protect the floor - cheap ones can be bought for 99p in supermarkets, and they make the session a lot less stressful if you're not worrying about spillages
4. Have a bath ready-run before you start your session, so that your little one can be put straight in when finished. Eden loves baths and this is a fun way to end our painting session 
5. A bit of an obvious one - make sure both of you are wearing old clothes you don't mind getting stains on. I often just put Eden in a nappy if it's going to be particularly messy - this also makes putting her in the bath a lot easier afterwards too as you don't have to fiddle with taking off messy clothes
6. Remember less is more where toddlers are concerned - there's no need to overwhelm them with 20 different colours of paint, they'll be just as happy with a choice of 2 or 3 when they're little
7. As hard as you may find it, let the child lead - if you have a plan to do a beautifully designed painting it's probably best to leave it until your little one is a little older. If you force them to 'paint' when they just want to mix you'll end up with tears and frustration on your hands. But...
8. Toddlers learn through copying so be prepared to quickly demonstrate beforehand and chances are your toddler will try and copy you too
9. Give warning before you finish, don't just snatch the paints away
10. Keep it fun, and make sure you're comfortable with doing the painting session, you won't have fun if you're stressed, and neither will your toddler. If you're calm and happy your toddler is much more likely to be too.  

Rainbow Rice!

This is a really easy play activity to do and any mess created can quickly and easily be swept up.

Eden's nearly 19 months old now, and is at the stage where she absolutely loves mixing and pouring! We were making playdough together the other day, she was helping me add the dry ingredients and all was going well until I added the water. All of a sudden her wonderful 'dry' mixture disappeared into a gloopy substance soon to become playdough and poor Eden dissolved into tears! Not the reaction that I was expecting! I happened to be videoing it at the time, and may have to create a post showing you.

Anyway, I thought as she enjoyed mixing the dry ingredients so much I would create some rainbow coloured rice for her to mix and stir. It was a big success! The method is really easy. All I did was buy a couple of big bags of bargain supermarket own-brand rice, add a few drops of food colouring and leave it to dry for abit. (Edited to clarify: No need to cook the rice first). I found that you only need the tiniest amount of food colouring, or else it will take ages to dry and the colour will transfer to fingers and hands when you play with it. 

Adding food colouring and leaving to dry

Mixing and stirring

Little colourful food measuring cups worked great as mini pourers

Learning a new word: 'Sprinkling'

Update: Salt dough handprints

Regular readers may remember that I did a themed week of play with Eden a couple of weeks ago, focussing on using our hands. We made some salt dough handprints, and so I thought I'd do a quick update of the finished results. 

After baking the dough, I found the food colouring had sunk to the bottom, so I was left with a stone-coloured handprint. I painted the inside of the handprint with nail varnish and the results look pretty cool! 

They're really easy to make, and a nice little keepsake. They could even be used as a paperweight to give as a gift. 

Ice Cube Painting

This activity with Eden was a lot of fun, and not very messy! I actually came across the idea from another blogger (Share and Remember blog) - you can see her ice cube painting here. However, instead of using material, I thought we'd give ice cube painting on canvas a try.

The materials are simple - an ice cube tray, some water-soluble paint (I used finger paint), some form of covering for the floor (I used a shower curtain) and a blank canvas frame (I discovered these are sold in my local pound shop and love them for the price of 99p each!).

I made up 25-50% mix of paint to added water for each cube. They looked very pretty!

I put them in a small tub to keep them tidy while painting:

Eden thought they were really colourful and spent a while just admiring them before getting 'stuck in'.

 The end result needed to dry outside. Once dry, I think we'll add some handprints to finish it off :)

Painting Flowers

A messy play week wouldn't be complete without a painting session, so today we got the fingerpaints out. In keeping with our 'HANDS' theme of the week, Eden used her hands to make the flowers. You may have seen earlier in the week that I wrote about how Eden has never been very good at handprints, and just got frustrated when we've tried handprinting sessions in the past. Well this week's theme certainly seems to have paid off along with the learning of her new word and gesture 'Splat!' yesterday. Today's handprint session was not only a success for a little person but also very fun! Amongst the random squidges, we made 2 'proper' paintings - one of which now has pride of place on our kitchen fridge, the other we are going to send as a surprise to a family member - so family members if you're reading it could be you! The idea for today's session was actually taken from another SAHM's blog - she has some great ideas and you can read her blog here

This ends our messy play week because tomorrow we're off camping. I have to say, we've never done as much messy play in such a short space of time, nor had a 'theme' for the week - but both have been a big success - I really feel like Eden's learnt from the process, she's learnt more about her hands and what she can do with them, and she's grown in confidence in her abilities and independence. I will definitely be keeping it up in future weeks, now to think up some more themes....

Jolly Jelly Splat!

In keeping with our messy play and craft week, Eden and I had fun with jelly this morning. Now, I don't mind a bit of mess, particularly 'dry mess' like toys or cheerios strewn across the living room - I can deal with that - but letting a toddler loose on jelly was just a step too far for me, so instead we had a 'contained' messy play session, where I sat her in her high chair, with bib on, and floor protection in the form of a shower curtain (a fab tip I picked up a while ago from a fellow Mummy).

I don't think Eden's seen jelly before, she definitely hasn't got her hands on it before, so this was a new experience for her. I had a proud mummy moment when buying it the other day - while waiting in the queue at the till Eden picked up the jelly and said clearly 'Jelly'. The couple in front of us in the queue were very impressed when she repeated it a few times too.

During the messy play session, we brought out some of her toy pots, pans and cutlery, sang a song about jelly on a plate and learnt some new words 'squish' 'wibble' and 'wobble'. Eden's favourite bit however, was saying 'Splat!' complete with accompanying gesture, showering everything in sight in bright pink jelly!  Good job I had that shower curtain down!

 

'Hand'iwork

It's half term this week, and for Eden and I this means our usual 'hang-outs' of the library, parks, swimming pool and soft play centre will be much busier than what we're used to. Add to this that the toddler groups aren't running, it occurred to me that I needed to think up some alternative activities to keep the both of us occupied this week. So we're having a 'messy play and craft' week at home.

Eden turned 18 months yesterday - she really is just like a sponge the way she soaks up learning experiences, and I find it very rewarding that I'm the one teaching her everything (or almost everything) she knows. Today, we learnt all about our hands. We started the day by making handprints out of homemade salt dough (like play dough but you can bake it so that it hardens like clay and you can then decorate and keep it). Eden has far from perfected the art of handprints from paint (she's just too wriggley and doesn't 'get it' yet), but she really enjoyed our salt dough session.

We then moved on to me drawing around our hands with felt tips - again she really engaged with this activity, pointing out her fingers on the page.

We finished off with some nursery rhymes using our hands - Eden's good at 'Twinkle Twinkle Little Star' and 'If you're happy and you know it Clap Your Hands'.

All in all a very enjoyable morning with my little girl :)