If your child loves stamp art, here’s a perfect way to create stamps at home, with some shape learning thrown in! Make-up sponges often come in bulk packages, so I simply grabbed a few from the bag and set them out alongside trays of paint.

Our sponges came in triangles, and I trimmed a few so we also had small diamonds and triangles in different sizes. If you want to get fancier, cut out hearts or other shapes, too!

Veronika then surprised me, by holding the sponge by one triangle point and dipping the flat bottom of it in the paint. So her prints came out as rectangles!

You can cover a sheet of paper just for fun, or fold thick paper in half and decorate just the front, in which case this would make a lovely card for a relative or friend.

Forget fancy spin art machines; there are so many fun ways to replicate the equipment at home, ranging from the messy to the messier. Even better, today we found a way to make “spin art” with almost no mess at all!

To start, I set out various colors of paint along with thick white paper and small paper plates. I invited Veronika to choose which colors we should use on our first plate.

She picked red, yellow, and orange, which I dolloped in the center of the plate. Flip over and press your hand firmly in the center, then twist your hand to rotate the colors around in a circle.

Lift up for the big reveal!

After making a few prints this way, it became clear that it was easier for Veronika’s little hands if we put the paint on the bottom of the plate, then rotated from on top. See which method your child prefers, based on age and strength.

You can work in some color mixing for a quick art lesson, as we did with red and yellow paint.

Or just add colors in a random way and make pretty designs. Either way, Veronika marveled each time that we lifted off the plate and she saw that we’d made a circle. We were definite fans of this variation on spin art!

The beautiful visual effect when salt hits wet paint has some science behind it, too! Whether your child is old enough to understand the STEAM concept of this project, or young enough just to enjoy the art and sensory play, this is an easy and fun craft to do together.

To start, I set out watercolors and a cup of water for Veronika, and invited her to make big stripes of wet color on thick paper. As soon as I began narrating, “Now some blue, now some green,” she dove right in. “I’ll do blue! I’ll do green!” she said, painting over my lines.

The wetter the better, and once we had several thick streaks of color, I invited her to sprinkle salt on top. Of course for a toddler this was great sensory fun.

But the real wow is watching the salt absorb the water right away. If you then shake off the excess, it leaves a neat bubbled look in the colors.

For an alternative, we painted a second set of thick stripes, then pressed plastic wrap on top. Leave until the color dries, then lift up. The paint itself looks full of bumpy, crinkled texture.

Veronika was eager to return to the salt, and soon had dumped a whole pile of salt on the paper and painted it directly with drops of watercolor!

Then she wanted to stir the salt around with her brush, add more water, stir the salt some more, etc., all of which kept her quite busy for a while.