Toddler Art :: Painting Canvases & Playing Poker

Its been a little quiet on the blog front here, but we've been busy in our every days.   Doing the every day and dealing with Handsome's odd hours job, making merry, the usual.  Ever since I realized that my baby was now a toddler, and that she might like to make things, we've been adding some creative doings to our shedules (fancy English accent required).

We *try* to only use the paintbrush, but sometimes...
The hands get what the hands want.

I love to get in on the painting, too!
The best part, is that if I don't like it, I can paint over it again with a different color.
The Nester taught me that.
The blue one, I want to put words on, but I don't know precisely how...

 Riley has loved doing the painting, and so long as I pick out colors that won't poorly mix (like green and purple and brown), the end result is generally aesthetically pleasing.  I'm planning on hanging a handful of the canvases together, all of our paintings, to showcase them.  A few 3M Velcro Strips* (They are THE BOMB!) and voila! We'll have another blank wall in our rental covered up with something beautiful! [This whole "no hole making" rule is chaffing, but we're working around it.]

Painting could definitely be done without purchasing canvases.  I was considering painting some pieces of cardboard white and letting them dry, then having RG paint on them.  But the canvases at Hobby Lobby are $6 for 2, sized 11x14.  That just seemed too good to pass up, especially when these might be turning into Christmas presents.  Another thought - I'd like to get them printed as postcards.  C'mon, who doesn't want a postcard that looks like this!?

On an unrelated-to-painting note, I made a toy for Riley.  It is nowhere near as pretty as her paintings, but it has brought a lot of enjoyment to my girl, and a lot of picking up of poker chips for me.  But whatevs.  

 Old oatmeal container, a moment with a knife, and a handful of poker chips: Boom.  New sorter toy.  When she's using it as Mom intended, its awesome.  I like to think that the different orientations of the slits in the top help her understand spacial reasoning, and the hole in the side allows her to follow cause-and-effect with chips in the top = chips out the bottom.  I may be reaching.  Regardless, she likes it.  When she uses it as a shaker toy, that results in chips flying all over the living room, she still loves it, although I love it less.

Although I came up with the idea on my own (mostly born out of desperation and cheapness), I was inspired by this gal here.  She & her son are constantly making cool things out of whats around them!  I love following along with her on Instagram and seeing all of her creations!

<3 M.

Toddlers & Art :: Finger Painting In A Box

Thus far, up until last week, I somehow I ignored the fact that my daughter, RG, might like to make things.  I mean, I loooooove to make things, and Riley loves all things, but I didn't make the connection.  It took her coming home, repeatedly, with crafts from daycare, for me to realize that we had never actually made a craft ourselves.  Unless pens from Mommy's purse and an old take-out menu count.  In which case, we've made 2.

The more I thought about it, the more I wanted to be intentional with creating things with my 20 mo. old (SERIOUSLY.  HOW IS THAT POSSIBLE?!?  YES, I KNOW I'M SHOUTING, BUT I'M IN SHOCK!).  We've had a few very fun projects so far, and I think I might be hooked.  Now, the projects RG & I do, they will never be perfect.  Or very well-planned.  Or necessarily attractive by the time all is said and done.  But we will have fun.  Of that, you can be most certain.

Today's art project comes to you courtesy of IKEA, who loves providing more cardboard boxes than any living soul knows what to do with.  Last night, after unpacking and wrangling and sweating and baptist-cursing (you know, like "dang it!" and "for the love!" and "I swear, I'm gonna........."), we had put together not only a child's chair, stuffed wingback, and couch-that-is-too-large-for-our-living-room, but also an impressive stack of cardboard sheets and boxes.

And the boxes, they spoke to me.  They said "We can hold things.  All sorts of things.  Things like messes."  And BOOM.  Inspiration.  

So this afternoon, I took sweet little Riley, got her down to a diaper, and plopped her in one of the boxes in our sun porch, which was by 4 PM nice and toasty warm.  Then I started handing her jars of finger paint.  I showed her how to use it (Is that an abomination?  That a toddler wouldn't know how to finger paint?  I felt abominable in that moment.  And not at all snowman-like.) and then just let her go wild.  She'd get tired of a color, and ask for more, and I'd throw another into the ring.  

Things started a little slow, but she quickly caught on, and I am proud to report that she now handles finger paints with at least moderate skill.  And by "moderate skill" I obviously mean she can slather with the best of them!

Lots of mess, oh yes.
But lots of mess IN ONE SPOT.
WHERE SHE CAN'T TOUCH OTHER THINGS.

Next time we do this, I'd change a few things:

1. Get better quality paints.  The Dollar Tree origins of the paints was not a big deal until bath time, when the blue was staining her skin, and I happened to remember that tomorrow is picture day.  We did eventually get the smurf-ness to fade, but it's still there somewhat.  I'd definitely go up in price some to avoid discolored children.
2. Speaking of bathtime, for the love, put the box in the bathroom!  The mess was wholey contained, right up until RG had to go the whole way through the house in order to get in a bath.  Luckily Handsome stepped in and provided a towel, with which I straight-jacketed my child and carried her through like she was foul garbage.  She thought it was a game.  We were both happy.  But keeping clean-up in mind when planning these things out is going to prevent a lot of headache in the future, I can tell.

Otherwise, we had a ton of fun, and I was happy that Riley got to be happy.  Plus, it gave me a few minutes (probably 20 or so!) of not hearing "uppy!?" or "block-shhh" or picking up legos or naming every. single. Sesame Street character 14 times in her book.  Yes, hearing "Elbo?" is cute once.  Even twice.  57 times in, it gets old.

What art have you been making lately?  Got any great ideas for projects that should take place in a box?  Please share, I've got plenty of boxes yet to go through!!

<3 M.