Painting Play

The warm days are slowly fading, as is Bugs time as our one and only. To take advantage of both I decided to play about with some home made paint. I used this recipe from Learn Play Imagine, which uses flour, dish washing liquid and food colouring.

I liked that it's 'toodler made'. And Bug had fun squishing the bag, although I think I should of given it a good squish after because it was a bit lumpy.  Bug didn't seem to mind though, the texture was thick and gloppy which is pretty appealing for eighteen month old. 

We used blue and red food colours, but I decided to use turmeric for the yellow, just to experiment with natural dye options. It worked quite well and makes a lovely yellow speckled subtly with rusty orange.  I'll have to do some more natural colour experiments soon. 

Arg! Little toes, always so cute! 

With the dish washing liquid as a main ingredient cleanup was easy and fun (bubbles). I think Bug may have preferred the cleaning up part more than the painting part but whatever keeps them happy right? 

This is a close-up of our finished work a few weeks later, I love that retains it's texture when dry.

Facts and figures:

While its homemade, the dish-washing liquid makes it uneatable (although non toxic if they do sample a bit) so this is definitely a toddler recipe and not for babies.

Can be whipped up in less than 5mins and costs next to nothing. 

Clean up is quick and easy and just as fun as the painting. We got a 2 lukewarm buckets of water, and under her painting smock Bug was just in a nappy and singlet so she could get as wet as she wanted. Once she'd given everything a good rinse in the first bucket we washed them again in the second bucket, then I checked all our brushes and plastic plates to make sure all the paint was off, I let everything dry before packing away for future painting use. There is a warning on 'Learn Play Imagine' not to put the paint dishes straight into the dishwasher as you may get bubble overload.

I didn't keep the paint but Allison says that if kept in an airtight container it should keep for a couple of weeks. 

We found a great set of painting sponges and rollers from spotlight.  Don't restrict yourself to just paintbrushes - sponges, corks, even leaves can make fun and interesting alternatives for spreading paint about. 

 

Have fun!

 

*K*

Baby Hands, Simple Decorations and Keepsakes

Little handprints are the cutest things, but they can be super hard to capture. While I find it really hard to get Bug hold her hand flat in order to get a clear print, and yet my mirrors have beautifully clear little prints all over (sigh). I have found, though that she thinks getting her  hand traced is pretty cool. Yeah she still wiggles her fingers a bit, but you can edit the print (filling in gap's, straightening out wobbly bits) afterwards.

The beauty of tracing is you can cut the prints out from basic white card and use them as a template to make as many sets as you want. You also don't have to worry about where on the original paper your child puts her hand because your cutting the prints out anyway, so even if some overlap or are upside down it doesn't matter, just choose the best ones to cut out at the end.

I traced the template onto pretty paper giving me an instant grandma pressie, (I hope to mount on white card, along with Bebe's hands (when she arrives), date and frame).  Another set will also make a great addition to Bugs photo album. There's loads of simple potential projects. A hand wreath, or bunting would be cute. And at Christmas time you could make simple, but effective gift tags.

But my main project became Bugs gift for Bebe. While on the Dolls in Dolls website I found a blank wobble toy (it has a little bell inside, Bug loves shaking it about), and decided it would make a great project. My problem tends to be settling on a particular theme or idea. I get overloaded with potential concepts and find it hard to settle on one. But eventually I decided on black and white and red themed based upon the theory that those are the colours babies see best. After using two coats of black acrylic I used a thick layer of gloss varnish to stick two of Bugs hand prints on. 

Due to the pear shape of the doll the hand wrinkled a bit. Decoupage instructions suggest a damp sponge can smooth out bubbles and wrinkles but I think little nicks in the paper to accommodate the folds would have been a better plan. Over the next few days I applied several more layers of varnish, and I'm actually quite happy with finished result. 

A word of warning though, now almost every time we colour I'm expected to trace around her hands, and once, her feet. Are you sure you don't want me to draw a cat I ask, no she replies, hand! OK Bugelicious you win... 

The Facts and Figures

Costs: Depends on the project. For Bebe's gift, I used black acrylic and varnish I already had, same with the spotty wrapping paper, so it cost me $9.95 for the blank wobble doll. It might cost $15-$20 if you needed all the supplies. 

Gift tags and paper bunting would be super cheap if you already have a craft stash of paper and ribbons. 

I was thinking preschoolers would enjoy tracing the hands of each family member, and choosing paper to represent each person. Then after mum or any other adult helper has cut out the prints they can be sorted into size order or other patterns. They can be mounted and dated as a alternative snapshot of 'my family'. 

Let me know if you come up with any other fun handy projects. 

*K*

Chocolate Free Easter treats

Bug will be 19 months old at Easter. I don't know about everyone else but I'm happy for her to wait at least another year before introducing her to the sugar overload that Easter can be. I figure her Grandmothers will be supplying her with more chocolate than I'm comfortable with anyways. Last year she was given 2 chocolate eggs. I ate them both, she was 7mnths, there was no way she was getting chocolate eggs! Anyway I digress. 

 

(Image from Village Pottery)

Last year I got Bug a personalised egg cup from TheVillage Pottery shop on Etsy.  I was so pleased with it. We actually used it for the soft boiled eggs with veggie chip soldiers we had for dinner tonight (it was lazy tea night), and I know as Bug gets older she'll appreciate having her own special things.
 

I'm hoping to get Baby number two (let's call her Bebe for now), the same or similar (we'll have to wait till she has a name of course).
 

This year I got some DIY nesting eggs from Dolls In Dolls. Which I decorated using vegetable based paints, and some gold acrylic. A couple of layers of varnish later and voila.  I wanted to keep mine quite simple so I could use the eggs as tools to talk about size, (small medium large, big, little, etc) and colours when we play with them, but there is potential to be as elaborate as your imagination allows. I would love to try decoupaging them, and it can see stencils coming super handy in the decorating process. 

The whole process was a fun mummy only activity for me, but I can't wait for a few years time, when I think Bug will have a ball creating her own Easter keepsakes.

The facts and figures:

The personalised egg cup cost $18 including postage from the UK, as it was made to order be prepared to get in early, it could take a few weeks.

The DIY eggs were $9.95 with $6 flat rate postage (and I ordered a couple of other items at the same time.)
The Paint and varnish I already had. The plant based paints are $16.50 from Eco toys . The gold acrylic was about $3 from Spotlight, as was the varnish.

Tip: I had a couple of natural sponges, which were really helpful to hold the wet eggs in order to paint them all  over without getting messy fingers.
Also sellotape can help you get nice crisp finishes - shoulda thought of that earlier...

*K*