CD Fish

We've been learning about the Great Barrier Reef so I wanted to do an activity to go along with it.

We had originally created some different types of coral out of air dry clay

but the clay crumbled as soon as it was dry

So

instead

I saw this cute fish craft on Parents.com 

and 

decided to give it a try

Belly Prints {and a birthday mess}

My sweet baby turned 2 this week

she loves squishing paint between her fingers and rubbing it all over

normally, I try to limit the amount of painting on the body

the amount of paint they can use

and 

what they can paint on

today I let her use all the paint she wanted

and

let her paint where ever she wanted

LET'S GET MESSY!

Aboriginal Dot Painting

Melted Crayon Art

Are you addicted to Pinterest?

I am.

And if you are too you would have seen some melted crayon art floating around

from JK Create's Etsy shop.

(she also has a Facebook page)

It was love at first sight! I repinned it immediately and started thinking of ways to put my own spin on it.

Tape resists popped into my mind

so 

that's what I did!

I printed out the girls' initials with the intention of cutting them out of contact paper

I tested a small amount on foam core board

(that's what I used instead of canvas)

the contact paper ripped to foamcore board

so I used blue painter's tape.

A for Alexis!

Lexi helped me pick out the order that her crayons would be glued on. Char had already picked out her colors and I used the leftover colors for Lexi's.

Just starting to melt at the tips

There is definitely a science to getting the crayons to melt a certain way

If you're using a hairdryer

(like me)

be wary that there will be splatters on high heat

(I tried low heat and it did absolutely nothing)

Holding the hairdryer over the middle of the crayons will cause it to start oozing out of the bottom

it surprised me with how quickly it all started happening

then I got this lovely build-up

which I loved but wouldn't be able to peel the tape off underneath it

So I melted the build-up down

and was able to pull the tape off easily

(do it before it cools completely)

I LOVE the result!!

We did the same exact process over again with Charlotte's.

Charlotte was willing to hold the hairdryer

unlike Lexi

who was watching me from a distance with both hands over her ears

Charlotte chose red, blue, and purple as soon as I asked her what colors she wanted

she kinda has this 'thing' for Spider-Man

I love how Charlotte's turned out

from a distance it looks dark, almost black

but once you get closer you can see the colors swirling together

Love these little "explosions"

I hung the initials over top of their bed

I think they look cool enough that the girls will want to have them over their bed even when they're in college

and when they look at it

they'll always have that wonderful memory of making it with their mom

:)

Finger Painting and Prints

We haven't done any painting in quite awhile

the girls were really excited to get their hands dirty

and their bodies

Then I turned around for a second to set a painting down to dry

If your eyes are itchy let me wipe the paint off your hands first!

After the girls got all the painting crazies out I showed them how to paint on one side of a folded piece of paper

Fold paper over

and

Voila!

a print

Set the paintings out to dry

Make the kids clean up their mess

while you run their bath

Bath time gave the paintings enough time to dry

so we came back out to do some coloring

I asked the girls to use oil pastels to draw what they saw in the prints

Lexi is still a scribbler

Charlotte was able to create a few images but she is very literal

so it took some coercing to get her to think outside the box

The finished creations

Lexi's scribbles

Butterflies
Char's on top
Mine below

Charlotte's bat

How do you encourage your literal child to think outside the box?