After a long string of beautiful days spent outdoors, today’s rain brought on a welcomed change – a day indoors filled with hide-and-seek, books, baking, and arts and crafts. Gracen LOVES painting, so while she napped, I gathered a few materials in preparation for a messy paint-filled afternoon.
We started out by using straws. (Have I mentioned that this girl has a thing for straws? Naturally, it was her first choice.) I plopped a few little drops of paint on the paper and demonstrated moving the paint by blowing through the straw. You should have seen her gorgeous little eyes light up! Although she was able to do it, I would definitely try to have a much longer, larger straw next time as it took a lot of effort and aim to really be effective. (Do they still have those giant Slurpee straws at 7-11? Because if so, they would be perfect!) 
Eventually, she moved to just dragging her straw through the paint, which gave a just as good (if not better) result. As you can see, she was pretty thrilled with it all:
With our straw painting up on the drying rack, we moved on to using Q-tips. I dropped little splots of paint on her paper, handed over the Q-tips, and let her go. She set to work without a moment’s hesitation, and announced, “More!” as soon as each paint blob had been smeared.
Next, we tried sponges. This one was especially fun because she ‘jumped’ her duck and rabbit-shaped sponges from one paint splot to the next, leaving a rainbow-coloured trail behind them.
After A LOT of jumping, we moved on to painting with a golf ball (marbles work well too!) I trimmed our paper slightly so that it could fit into a deep baking pan, splattered some paint on top, and placed the ball inside.
With just a couple of instructions, Grae figured out just what to do. She gently tilted the pan back and forth, running the ball through the paint splots. The result was really cool – little multicoloured tracks all over the page.
With our paper fully covered in tracks, I decided to grab a pinecone (a rare case when having little bowls filled with collections of things stored in your kitchen is actually convenient) to use as a brush of sorts. Since we were nearing the end of our painting afternoon and we’d already used a lot of the paint, I handed over the entire tray and let Gracen go to town. She dipped and stamped and dipped and drug her pinecone until there wasn’t much left of it. 
Haha! I know that this would be some parents’ worst nightmare, but I’m a fan of getting messy once and a while. Plus, what are you going to do? Let all that leftover paint go to waste?! With the go ahead from Mama, Gracen cautiously tipped the tray of paint over onto the brown packaging paper we were using to protect the table. 
No painting afternoon is complete without finger painting, is it?
And here are the finished masterpieces:
I’d say it was a successful rainy afternoon. ☺
A couple of weeks ago, we picked up this cute little crab sandbox for Grae on sale for half price. Big score – she loves it. I think we’ve spent every nice afternoon in it since we filled it up.
First, Grae helped me gather our ingredients – all-purpose flour, salt, cocoa, cream of tartar, oil, and boiling water (which is safely stored on a counter on the opposite side of the kitchen).
We decided to use our mixer this time around, but you could just as easily use a bowl, wooden spoon, and some elbow grease instead. Start off by adding your flour to the bowl.
Then dump in the salt. Close your eyes while doing so for an added challenge.
Next up -the magic ingredient… Cocoa!
Then add a little bit of cream of tartar….
And mix it all together.
When your dry ingredients are fully blended, add some oil.
Then mix again.
Now for the ‘mommy only’ job… Slowly pour your boiling water into the mixture.
Then mix until everything is well blended and the dough begins to come together.
At this point, the dough might appear to be a little goopy, but resist the urge to add flour just yet. Stop your machine and scrape down the sides and bottom of the bowl, making sure to incorporate any loose flour.
Now give it one more quick mix.
Dump the dough out onto the counter and pat everything together into a nice ball.
Voila! You’re ready to have some fun!
Mmmmmm… Smells so good too!
For some added fun, we took out a box of chocolates we’ve had around since Christmas, dumped the contents, and made some yummy play dough chocolates of our own.
Of course, Gracen didn’t mind in the least. She was just as pleased with styrofoam craft eggs as she would have been with the real thing.
Instead of my usual wax resist dyed eggs, this year I opted to try something different {and slightly risqué when your partner in crime is an enthusiastic one year old}… Glittered eggs! Grae was up for the challenge and applied glue to the eggs like an old pro.
Shaking on the glitter was fun, but at least half of it got on the blanket and Grae rather than the egg… Not to mention that it took f.o.r.e.v.e.r.
So we opted to try out a different method! We started by dumping out our glittered into bowls…
Then plopped the gluey eggs into the glitter bath and gently rolled them around. This was definitely the way to go. Quick and efficient. Just the way I like things.
The eggs definitely didn’t turn out perfectly and we had a bit of a glittery, gluey disaster on our hands afterwards, but it was fun.
Pretty!
Tip: Don’t put the nylon sock over your head robber-style. It may scare the socks off your little one.
Lesson learned and ready to go. Put the toe of your nylon sock into your container and roll the top portion over the container. The toe should be dangling just above the base of the container.
Scoop a few spoonfuls of grass seed into the toe of your nylon.
Make sure all of the seeds get down to the very bottom of the sock (otherwise your grasshead will be a grassface also).
Fill the sock with soil, pushing it down every now and then to create a nice round head shape.
When your head is the shape and size you desire, make a knot as close to the soil as possible in order to keep the contents of your grasshead nice and tight.
Next, using a permanent marker, draw your grasshead’s mouth. Remember that the nylon’s toe will be the top of your grasshead’s head, and the knot will be the bottom.
Next, pinch a little bit of soil, along with the nylon, up from the centre of the face to create a nose. Tie it off with some jute. (An elastic or pipe cleaner works just as well for this job.)
Now choose some googly eyes.
Put eyes into a couple of dabs of hot glue and apply pressure to ensure they’re secured well.
Voila! You have a hair-less grasshead!
If you’re feeling silly, you can celebrate with a grasshead kiss.
Bathtime! But first, chop off the excess nylon leaving about 3 inches of nylon dangling from your knot. This will serve as a straw of sorts later, helping your grasshead slurp up water from its jar. Fill a sink with lukewarm water and fully submerge your grasshead for about 1 minute. Afterwards, gently squeeze the excess water out of the grasshead, being sure to keep the seeds at the top. This is a good time to mold your grasshead a little if you wish.
Fill a cup or jar with lukewarm water, place the grasshead’s ‘tail’ in the jar, and rest the head on the rim of the jar. Add water as needed and watch your grasshead grow a wild head of hair! Once the grass hair has really come in, you can cut and style it as you wish. Mohawk anyone?
Ready and waiting.
Cautious in the beginning.
Getting into it.
Woohoo! This is fun!
Amidst a masterpiece.
Tie-dyed hands.
Le pièce de résistance.
So proud. (It turned out so beautifully that we headed out to Ikea to pick out a frame for it. There’s something special about having your little one’s artwork up on the walls…)
I told Grae she could choose its spot and showed her several potential places on her bedroom walls, but she simply shook her head at each suggestion. She took the frame from my hands and placed it on top of her little shelf where she insists on keeping all three of her other frames (I’ve tried moving one to a new location while she’s in another room on several occasions, but I always come back to all three back on the shelf).
Here’s what you need: Some flour, salt, cream of tartar, vegetable oil, water, food colouring, and a cute little sous chef to help you along the way.
First things first, pour your water in a large pot.
Next, add your salt. Preferably into the pot. But hey, whatever works.
Then, add your cream of tartar.
And your food colouring. (Of course for this little one, purple was the colour of choice.) Give everything a little stir.
Then, over medium heat, warm the mixture until hot, but not boiling.
When hot, add your oil and your flour, cup by cup.
Don’t worry if it looks all chunky and gross. We’ve used this recipe several times and we’ve always experienced this stage. It’ll all work out in the end.
When you’ve added all of the flour, give the dough one final stir and plop it out onto a well-floured counter. Sprinkle some extra flour on top if the dough appears sticky. Be careful – it’ll be very hot still.
Once it’s cooled, kneed the dough well, incorporating all of the extra flour.
Then give your munchkin a chunk and let her go to town.
Fun for hours!
In preparation for Little G’s Valentine’s Day tea, this morning we experimented with making our own finger paint. I found the 
Gracen carefully added all of our ingredients into a large measuring cup first…
And then enthusiastically mixed it up!
Then we warmed the mixture on the stove…
Separated it into small bowls, added a few drops of food colouring, and stirred it well. It looks pretty, right?