Creative Family Fun

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Toddler Activities

Cardboard Roll Stamping

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I’ve been hoarding empty toilet paper rolls lately (yes, an embarrassing admission). So to avoid ending up on an episode of Hoarders and also to make my husband happy, I decided it was time to use up some of them.I had recently ran across the idea of toilet paper roll stamping on Tot School and decided to give it a go. I squished the rolls into shapes at one end and set out a few colors of tempura paint (I loosened the paint up a bit with water because it seemed a bit too thick for this project).

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The girls were eager to get started, as you can probably tell by the hand hovering over the paint! My requests of “let Mommy take a quick picture” were just not heeded. Oh well, I let them go at it.

They started stamping and enjoyed the process immensely. Then AJ discovered that you could mix colors by dipping your roll in multiple colors of paint. Then Lizzie decided to get her fingers involved. Suddenly…

Yes, indeed, cardboard roll stamping evolved into handprint art! Look at those hands!

The girls used up many pieces of paper and all the paint I had set out. They had tons of fun and I’m proud of myself for just sitting back and letting them create (which is sometimes quite hard for me). Take a look at all of the finished products!

What have you been creating lately?

Window Art

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Art doesn’t have to always be confined to paper or even clay. After bookmarking this wonderful post by You’ll Thank Me One Day and arming myself with the revolutionary idea that wet craft foam sticks to windows, I set the girls to work.They each had a bowl of water, a paint brush and a bowl of craft foam shapes. The original concept was to paint the back of the shapes, then stick them on the window.

Well, evidently that wasn’t a satisfactory way to do this. The girls immediately started painting the water directly on the window then sticking the pieces on. Well, that works too!

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They stuck and stuck and stuck. They experimented a bit and learned that you can dip your shapes in water and they’ll stick to the window as well. That was a revolutionary idea for these two!

All in all, they loved this project.I know they’ll be asking to do it again and again and I’ll pull out the bowl of foam shapes again and again.

After all, what’s not to love. It’s relatively mess free (other than wiping up water from the floor) and it kept little feet from getting underneath me while cooking dinner (loved that bonus feature).

The next time you need to spark a little bit of creativity, remember, wet foam sticks to glass!

Making Masks

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Lizzie loves to find a project waiting for her when she wakes up in the morning.This morning, to go along with our art week, I put out several elements the girls could use to make masks.

I cut out simple mask shapes from paper plates, added crayons, a small basket of star stickers, glue sticks and the paper plate scraps I had cut off the masks.

It didn’t take her long this morning to get to work. AJ soon joined the fun.

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They glued, stuck stickers and largely ignored the crayons (oh well).Lizzie opted for a more formal arrangement of the stickers, while AJ was all about the glue sticks. She added quite a few of the paper plate scraps.

I left them free to do as they pleased and only helped when asked. I love to see what they come up with on their own. Here are the finished products:

What are you and your kids up to this week?

Suncatchers

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It’s a sunny day, the kids are freshly bathed after a mud pie baking session, and you need to cook dinner.So what do you do?

Grab a bucket of tissue paper scraps, a roll of contact paper, and some painter’s tape. It’s time to make suncatchers!

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The process was easy.I taped up a couple of squares of contact paper to our patio window and told the girls to cover all the sticky bits with the tissue paper.

After that, they started working.

They were quite deliberate at times and others times they just started randomly sticking tissue paper. This was one of those projects that needed very little supervision, so I got to sit back and enjoy watching the process. (Oh, and cook dinner too!)

Once they were finished, I covered their handiwork with another square of contact paper. and we hung them back up on the window.

The results were quite colorful and very pretty! And now we still have a bucket full of tissue paper… I need to think of some more craft projects!

P.S. You can find another fun version of this at Mamma May I Blog… tissue paper fish!

Butterfly Color Match

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After we packed away all the contents of our space basket, I started working on filling it with butterfly-related games and books.One activity I decided to make myself was a butterfly color match game.

My first stop was our local home improvement store for paint swatches. I picked some of the brightest colors I could find and made sure I had two each of the ten colors.

You could have as many or as few different colors as you want, as long as you have two of each color.

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I kept one swatch of each color whole and used the other to cut a butterfly shape.Then, I showed the girls the cards and how they match. But, other than that, I have no actual rules to this game.I tend to let them use the cards as they want.

There are times when they make up a game that I never would have even thought of. Usually, though, they do play a match game with this set.

I had my 2-year-old in mind when I made this game. I knew this would be something she would be able to do and it would allow her to participate and play with the butterfly basket.It’s so easy to find activities at my 4-year-old’s level and much, much harder to find easier, toddler-friendly activities.

I added several other activities, games and books in the basket, all with the butterfly theme. Don’t worry! I’ll share them all here soon!