Mess Free Painting (Snowmen)

Today we decided to put a little spin on our painting! First I traced 3 different sizes of circles using cups on white construction paper and cut them out. Next, I laid out 3 ziplock bags and picked out 6 different colors of paint. I picked out 2 circles and 2 colors for each bag. I squirted some paint on each circle and carefully slipped them into the bag! Make sure they are tightly zipped!



Here comes the fun part! Your little one can use their hands or paint brushes to swirl and spread the paint around! I even put them on the floor and we used our feet too!

Once Cayden was done, I carefully took the circles out of the bag and let them dry! I then stacked them to make snowmen and drew little faces! Some cute new art work for our fridge!

 

 

Water Fun

Cayden is all about asserting his defiant side right now! He has always loved bath time but for a couple months he refused to take baths. It seems that overnight this has changed again and I cant keep him OUT of the bath.We found a Toy Story boat that has flashing lights and color changing Toy Story characters that make bath time lots of fun...maybe too fun! Cayden would like to take about 3 baths a day but now we have come up with a solution! After 1 bath, we pull out the bowls! The color changing toys keep him entertained for hours! I fill one bowl with warm water and one with ice water and he moves the toys back and forth! We even bring the pan out to put the boat in and fill it with bubbles!

 

Salt dough Handprints

Every website and blog I've been to that has directions to make salt dough prints makes it seem very simple. I did not find it so easy but I ended up with some cute ornaments!

This is the recipe I used (it made about 6 toddler ornaments, you would be able to make more for an infant)
-2 cups flour
-1/2 cup salt
-3/4 cup water

You will also need
-Acrylic paint
-Gloss
-Ribbon

Mix ingredients and knead the dough. Then roll and make into circles using a cup. I made a small hole for the ribbon using a straw. My little one loved the rolling part!

 

We also had Woody and Buzz make some hand prints too :)

 

 

You will find that everyone uses different oven temperatures and baking times to make their salt dough ornaments. A lot of websites will tell you to bake your prints for 20-45 minutes at 300 degrees. But neither of these times were nearly long enough and the temperature was too high. If you cook them at too high of a temp, they will rise and you will have to poke holes in them. They will also start browning on the outside before the inside is cooked. I finally found the perfect cooking time and temperature.

-250 degrees for 2 hours and 15 minutes. I turned the ornaments over and turned the temp down to 200 for the last 15 minutes. They turned out great!

 

I painted the inside of the hand but it would also be cute to paint the outside of the hand or paint them both with different colors. If you are painting the entire ornament with acrylic paint, you can use a can of crystal clear acrylic coating. Since I only painted the inside of the hand, I used a clear coat high shine glaze. Don't forget to add your child's name and age/date on the back!

 

I think everyone will love this gift from Cayden! :)