Toodler Kids: painting

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Pumpkin Painting & Decorating for Toddlers

Halloween Activities

Pumpkin Painting & Decorating

Always use tempera paint (not acrylic) with young children. To help the paint adhere to the pumpkin you can mix it with liquid glue in the paint tray before starting.

She is painting 2 pumpkins, one for herself and one for her baby sister.

Preferably wait for the paint to dry overnight before decorating, but obviously that didn't happen here. I pre-cut foam shapes for eyes, nose and mouth and you can have your child glue them on or use the self-adhesive foam sheets like I used and they can just stick it on.

Kids love googly eyes so I suggest you stock up if you're doing art regularly with them.

Allow your child the freedom to place things where they want to, even if it doesn't look right. You can give them general guidance but if they don't follow it just remember it's their artwork, not yours. The experience is more important than the finished product!

This is how it turned out. You can use many other materials like glitter (I recommend glitter glue because it's less messy), stickers, playdough, markers, pretty much anything you have on hand.

Painting Activity for Babies

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Finger painting with babies might start out with fingers... but it can quickly turn into full body painting! Yes, this may seem very messy (and it is!) but the end result is a masterpiece that you can hang on your wall and your guests will think it's a modern art piece you bought at the gallery. Well, maybe not quite.. but you'll have some great wall art for your kid's room.

When my daughter was 8 months old I started painting with her. I placed an old sheet on the floor to contain the mess, then I laid down one of my large canvases. I squirted some finger paint on the canvas, one color at a time, and she eagerly went to work. She started spreading the paint around the canvas with her fingers, then proceeded to crawl all over the painting and use her whole body as a paintbrush. The result was impressive!

Tips:
1: Make sure your child is at least 6 months old and is able to sit up on their own. If your child does not crawl yet you can rotate the canvas for them or place the child on different parts of the canvas. If your baby is crawling, let them crawl all over the painting. It might seem like the canvas is bending or caving in, but it should snap back into place later.

2: My daughter started out in a t-shirt onesie but I quickly learned that it was much easier if she paints without any clothes, just a diaper. This makes it easier to quickly place her in a bath right after the activity. Also, the diaper actually creates some interesting designs when it is dragged across a painting!

3: Start by squirting one color on one part of the canvas. Let the child finish spreading that paint around. Then squirt another color somewhere nearby and let the child work on that. Keep doing this until the painting is complete.

4: Let the child complete the painting at their own pace - some babies might be done in 5 minutes and decide to crawl away in search for the next adventure, while other babies might sit and paint for quite a while.

5: You may know from experience that complementary colors (colors that are opposite each other on the color wheel. example: red & green, blue & orange, yellow & purple) will turn a lovely shade of brown when combined. In order to keep the painting bright and colorful and minimize brown areas try to avoid using complementary colors next to each other.

6: Yes, babies put everything in their mouth. These Crayola finger paints are non-toxic, but if you prefer you can make your own homemade finger paints with this simple recipe.

Egg Carton Recycled Easter Crafts

After you boil all your Easter eggs what do you do with the egg carton? The possibilities are endless! I am going to show you a few ideas for recycled and eco-friendly Easter crafts, including a flower, a bunny rabbit, a cat, and a caterpillar.

Flower

Cut out one of the cups from the egg carton. Every egg carton has a slightly different shape but you should get a flower-like shape after cutting. You may have to cut it a bit more to form the petals.

Use a sharp instrument to poke two holes at the bottom of the flower. Then you will thread a chenille stem through one hole and back out the other hole.

Twist the two ends together to form the stem.

My daughter painted the flower and glued a pom pom in the middle. This is the finished product:

Caterpillar

Cut the egg carton down the middle lengthwise to make this caterpillar. You can add more cups to make it longer. Let your kids have fun painting and decorating it!

Cat

For the cat you will need two cups - one for the head and one for the body/legs. Make sure to cut the legs to be the same length otherwise it won't stand.

For the head you use another cup and you may have to cut and shape the ears.

Glue or staple the head and legs together.

Let your child paint the cat, add eyes, whiskers, tail, and any other accessories.

Rabbit

The rabbit is the same as the cat except the ears are longer.

Paint it, add eyes, whiskers, a pom pom tail and anything else your child wants!

Easy Mother's Day Pop-Up Card

Every time I open up a card or book and see that it has pop-ups, I feel a little happier. And Mother's Day is all about making moms happy. So here is a little tutorial on how to make an easy pop-up card with your toddler or preschooler - it really is easier than you think! This is a nice craft that even Daddies can do with their kids (hint hint). I also included some (optional) printable clipart that you can use to finish off the card, but you can easily use other craft supplies like tissue paper, stickers, etc. Just remember that whatever is inside the card should be relatively thin so that it can actually close.

Step 1:

Have your child create 2 paintings on a heavyweight type of paper. Then let the paintings dry completely.

Step 2:

Choose which painting will be seen on the outside of the card - fold in half with the painted part on the outside. (ours was the purple one) The other painting will be on the inside of the card - fold in half with the painted part on the inside. (ours was the greenish one) You now have 2 cards. You will place one inside the other as I show in the picture, but not yet - first we have to make the pop-outs in the middle.

Step 3:

Take the "inside" painting (the greenish one) and make 4 short cuts (about 1/3 of the width of the paper) along the folded edge. I drew 4 lines on the picture below to show you more clearly.

Then press in the little strips of paper so that they "pop" out from the inside of the card. Fold along the edges of the pop-out parts so that they retain their shape. You now have 2 pop-out parts but if you prefer you can just do 1 large pop-out in the middle by making 2 cuts instead of 4.

Step 4:

Put glue on the non-painted sides of the 2 cards and glue them together. Make sure you put a lot of glue around the edges and corners. You can then close the card and set it underneath a pile of books for 30 minutes to make sure it stays glued together nicely.

And that's it! We now have a pop-up card! Keep reading for the decorating instructions.

Step 5: Decorate!

Have your child decorate the outside of the card with whatever you have on hand, stickers, glitter, or you can use some of the free clipart I have. We decided to keep it simple and just glue a little heart that says "mom".

Step 6: Now that the outside is decorated we can glue the things that we want to pop-up on the inside. We chose two flowers from my clipart and glued them to the pieces that pop out.

Then we cut slits in the "grass" and glued it to the bottom of the flowers.

We called it "finished" after this because I really didn't want to cover too much of her beautiful paintings. If your child can write, they can use a sharpie or marker to write on top of the painting. Here is our finished card - inside and outside.

You can download the Free Clipart Here

Mother's Day Flower Craft

Mother's Day is this weekend and if you are still looking for a last minute craft idea - here is an easy and beautiful one! It took me a minute to gather the materials that I already had on hand, and the activity took about 10 minutes. The result is something you can frame and give to a mother or grandmother to melt their heart.

Materials: tempera paint, heavyweight paper, tissue paper, pom pom, popsicle stick

Here are the steps for your child:

-Paint a piece of paper with yellow paint (or whatever color your child wants)

-Paint a popsicle stick with green paint (skip this step if you already have a green popsicle stick)

-Glue the popsicle stick, vertically in the middle of the paper.

-Give your child a large piece of tissue paper to crumple up and then glue to the top of the popsicle stick

-Give your child a smaller piece of a different colored tissue paper to crumple up and then glue on top of the first tissue paper.

-Glue a pom pom in the middle of the flower on top of the tissue paper

-Glue green tissue paper for the leaves at the bottom of the popsicle stick

For a beautiful frame that fits 3 dimensional craft projects like this, check out this amazing company that I am affiliated with. All you do is slide the artwork right in. This would make such a wonderful gift, or a great way to display your child's artwork in their room.

30+ Activities for 4th of July

Looking for 4th of July activities to do with your kids? Here are over 30 ideas for 4th of July, including very creative arts & crafts, Montessori activities, Free Printables, Sensory Activities, and Book Lists with the best patriotic books.