Category: Arts & Crafts

Make a Shiny Picture

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This idea came to us care of High Five magazine – the younger sibling of the well-known Highlights (Travis has just “graduated” from his subscription to Hello, the very youngest magazine aimed at ages 0-2!). The shiny background plus paints in the hot color trio of red, orange, and yellow make it the ideal art project for a scorching summer day.

Set out plastic cups with red, orange, and yellow paint. Tape a piece of aluminum foil to cardboard for a sturdy work surface.

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Add 1 teaspoon dish detergent to each paint cup, stirring to combine – the soap helps make the paints extra shiny!

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Now set your child up with paintbrushes and the paint cups, and the rest is up to them! I told Travis he was painting the hot colors of the sun on his shiny canvas, which he was very into.

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I was particularly proud because this is the first painting project of ours in which I literally didn’t put down a drop of paint, not even one swipe as an example to get him started. Every single brush stroke was Travis’ own. He was so absorbed in his work, and clearly very carefully using the brushes in different ways – long strokes, short taps, running the colors together, etc.

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Without meaning to, I set the painting on a slight tilt to dry; the angle created tiny rivulets that I thought made it look even more like the sun! My husband loved the result so much he wants to frame it for our apartment. Thanks High Five!

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Toddler Car

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We had lots of indoor play today in the wake of a little illness, but thank goodness we had a toddler-sized box at home from a recent package delivery – it turned out to be the highlight of the day!

Early in the morning, I cut four holes in the sides of the box and told Travis they were the four windows of our car.

I left one flap of the box at the front end to be the dashboard, which I then decorated with a crayon wheel. Travis took over with the crayons, and the box turned into a beautiful canvas for his art and imagination.

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We added four circles of aluminum foil for the wheels, which I simply taped on. If you have a large enough box, consider stapling on foil pie tins for sturdier wheels. A wad of aluminum foil taped to the wheel was the finishing touch as the “horn.”

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Travis loved his car so much that he was in it for over an hour in the afternoon! We had to take many vroom-ing rides across the living room carpet, and continued the decoration with more markers and stickers.

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A sure sign that he’s feeling much better!

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Sticker Surprise

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Travis is under the weather, so needless to say we had a very quiet, snuggly day. The happiest and most alert he was all day, though, was when I suggested sticker play – he can’t get enough of his shape stickers! I decided to make things even more interesting with this painting “surprise.”

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Encourage your toddler to arrange stickers (big ones in interesting shapes work best) however he or she would like on a piece of construction paper.

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Next, let your child paint over the entire paper – stickers included! – with tempera paint. This was our first opportunity to test out the non-toxic tempera paints from Natural Earth Paint and they worked wonderfully! (Note: The paint is available in both vegan or milk-based versions).

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Travis chose purple and green and loved that his stickers were now “hiding.”

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Unfortunately by the time the paint dried and I did the big reveal – peeling off the stickers to show the shapes left behind – Travis was feeling even crummier. I hung our craft on the fridge, and hopefully he’ll look back on it in a day or two to remember the fun he had putting it together!

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Now it’s time for more toddler snuggles.

Rain Sticks

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Travis and I woke up to a rainy morning – so what better activity than to make a rain stick? You only need a few household items to put this craft together.

Start with a paper towel tube, and let your child decorate any way they like. I drew a few blue raindrops as prompts and told Travis we were drawing a stormy day, so he was very excited to use blue for rain, black for storm clouds, and white for lightning.

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Close up one end of the rain stick with a sheet of aluminum foil, and secure with masking tape. Parents, I learned through trial and error that a double (or triple!) layer of foil is a safe idea here, so you don’t get any pesky holes.

Next, shape a pipe cleaner into a loose coil, and have your child insert into the tube. Can I be honest? I have no idea what the pipe cleaner is for. To give the rice inside the rain stick something to fall down around, perhaps? Ah well, I followed instructions, so in goes the pipe cleaner.

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This next step was Travis’s favorite part. Let your child help you pour dry rice into the tube. Make sure you don’t add too much (in which case the rice can’t shake around enough); a 1/4 cup felt like a good amount. Seal up the other end of the tube with foil and tape, and your rain stick is ready for shaking!

Travis had some fun with the imaginative task of “raining” on flowers we have here at home..

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…after which he made it rain over his barn and animals.

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No matter what the weather, rain sticks make great instruments, so tuck this project away until the next time you and your toddler have a music-making session.

Handprint Sheep

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There are multiple experiences contained within this one art project: the concept of tracing, fine motor skill development from using glue, and of course the tactile fun of cotton balls! It’s a simple art project for a lazy morning at home.

To start, trace your child’s hand on construction paper with a pencil. In retrospect, I wish I’d used a better background than plain white – perhaps green for a sheep’s meadow? Your child’s fingers are now the sheep’s four “legs” and his or her thumb is the “head.” Travis really enjoyed having his hand traced. He removed it from the paper a few times before I could finish, but put it right back in the same spot when I asked him to.

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Since a child’s hand is so small, I decided to make a “mommy sheep” next to his baby sheep, and traced my own hand.

Have your child dab glue all over the bodies of the sheep (the palms of your handprints), then press down fluffy cotton balls for the wool. Needless to say, Travis loved this part!

Handprint Sheep (2)Once the glue dried, we finished our creation with crayons. I can’t say that Travis really understood we were coloring in a sheep’s head and legs, but in his defense, I’m not sure our woolly little creatures look much like sheep either! They’re cute and fun though, so can’t beat that.

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The craft also lends itself nicely to a few ways to continue your playtime; Travis wanted to trace other objects with the pencil after we finished, and of course extra cotton balls had to take a turn in our pom pom chute.

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Build a Sand(Paper) Castle

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Today was our first beach day of the summer! We took Travis to the beach last summer, but at one-year old, he likely has only foggy memories of it.

So to set the tone for a fun beach day, we started our morning with this easy sand(paper) castle craft at home!

You’ll need various grades of sandpaper to make the castle (coarse, medium, and fine), and I recommend a variety of colors as well for the best visual effect. Cut the sandpaper sheets into shapes like rectangles, squares, and triangles and then let your child arrange on the paper.

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At this age, Travis needed help gluing the pieces in proper formation, but he loved dipping a paintbrush in the glue and dabbing on the back of the sandpaper pieces before I affixed each one (and sometimes added more glue after, as you see in the picture!).

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If you have older kids, let them be the architect of their own castle formation!

Once the glue has dried, finish your castle with a marker background. We made sure to add a beautiful blue sky day.

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The fun need not stop there; leftover sandpaper pieces made for great play on the carpet, organizing into structures and talking about the various shapes.

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Then Travis discovered it felt funny on his feet to walk on the sandpaper. “Ouch!” he said with a laugh, before walking back across.

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And then it was off to the real beach!

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Stuffed Snake

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Yesterday, Travis got to see snakes at a nearby nature preserve. So of course we had to bring the fun home today!

To make your “snake,” all you need is a pair of old knee-high nylons and yesterday’s newspaper. Parents, you’re going to largely have to put this craft together for your little one, as little arms can’t reach all the way to the toe of the stocking. But Travis had a blast helping to crumple up the newspaper:

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He was eager to help stuff the newspaper inside until we had a long snake. To finish, simply tie a tight knot at the end.

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Before playing with the snakes, Travis had fun selecting a few pieces from our felt collection to glue on as eyes and mouths. After that, the sky’s the limit! What didn’t we do with our snakes?

We “slithered” them:

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We crawled them along the windowsill:

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We kicked them:

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We shook them (the newspaper makes a fantastic approximation of a rattlesnake’s rattle):

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We also recreated a jungle play scene from Daniel Tiger (Season 1, Episode 2), jumping from bean bag to bean bag through snake-infested territory. Travis got quite a kick out of this activity.

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And what jungle is complete without base camp? Ours even had a special guest appearance by a black panther:

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How did your child play with the snakes? Please share in comments below!

Black Magic

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I told Travis that today we were going to make some magic with our artwork, and he got so excited! There are two versions of this game, “revealing” other colors through black paint or crayons, and the second version worked much better for us.

Try both and see which one your child likes better!

In the first, have your child color as thickly as they can with crayons on white paper. Travis loved the idea of coloring very thickly, and took to it right away.

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Next, use black watercolor paint and a paintbrush to color over the whole paper. The crayon wax will resist the paint, for a very cool effect. Travis was only mildly interested in this version though, because he is new to watercolors and was more interested in mixing the various colors and dipping the paintbrush in water than in covering over his crayon work.

I finished the picture off just so he could see the full effect:

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The next version was a big hit! After coloring a rainbow of colors thickly on white paper, I told Travis we had to hide the rainbow under black crayon.

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We’ve been playing a lot of hide-and-go-seek lately, so he was very into the idea that his other colors were hiding (even though we could still sort of see them), and showed him how to scratch off the black crayon with a coin.

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He was so excited to reveal the colors underneath (“I see yellow!), even though the result wasn’t crystal clear. Overall, very exciting and “magical.”

Tape Pictures

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If your kid loves crayons, this is a neat way to vary the fun. In full honesty, Travis needed quite a lot of direction as we put the craft together, since the concept and method were new, but it still made for lots of fun, and filled a nice half hour of our morning.

To start, help your child tear masking tape into small pieces, and arrange however he or she would like on a piece of construction paper. Travis told me he was making “helicopters” and trucks,  piling his tape in big mounds, so I added a few extra pieces to space things out a little more.

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Likewise when it came time to color, Travis was making circles and blotches in small segments of the paper, so I showed him how to apply the color more evenly, including over the tape, for the best result.

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I made 2 versions of my own – one with his name and one with a helicopter – of course! – so he could fully appreciate the tape’s effect.

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Then it was time to peel the tape off! Travis loved this part, although it was quite difficult even for a grown-up to do without tearing the construction paper.

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Still, we ended up with very neat pictures to display on our fridge for a few days.

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Next time I would try the activity with markers and poster board for a sturdier final result.

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Sticky Situations Part 3

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Next time your toddler needs a “canvas” for their art, try taping a sheet of sticky contact paper to a window, wall, or the floor. Decorations can include crumpled tissue paper, cotton balls, or anything else that adheres to the contact paper. I’ve seen gorgeous rainbow art done in the this way!

I needed to wrap a gift in tissue paper, so thought Travis might have fun having a tissue paper project of his own to occupy him while I worked, but…

…. I should have subtitled this post “How Not to Entertain Your Toddler While Wrapping a Bridal Shower Gift.”

First, there was the excitement of sticky contact paper on the floor. Travis was very curious to walk across it, but needed my help for big sticky steps off a few times.

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We decided we were going to use his tissue paper to make a garden, so then came the fun of ripping the paper into pieces small enough to crinkle into “flowers.” This activity was delightful, although I had to play defense near the cat food bowls so that little tissue paper pieces didn’t end up in the turkey.

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We needed stems for our flowers, but I was out of green yarn. Luckily there’s nothing wrong with blue stems in a toddler’s magical fairy garden!

So then of course we needed glitter. Travis wasn’t content with a few sprinkles; he dumped on whole canisters of Martha Stewart Crafts glitter. “We need purple!” he insisted, once the green was all over our garden, and I couldn’t say no. He loved dumping the purple and spreading it evenly among his flowers.

At this point we were both covered in glitter and embarked upon clean-up with a lint roller. We had a great time, but needless to say, it’s not exactly the right distraction to keep a toddler busy while you’re wrapping someone else’s present!