Every year as a child, my brother and I would spend a week or two at my Baba’s (which means grandmother in Ukranian) house a few hours from home. My Baba, who is probably one of the most talented, creative, do-it-all women I know, always made sure we had adventures to go on, activities to do, and projects on the go. One of the things we’d always do was paint rocks. It’s such a simple idea, but it was something I truly looked forward to each year.
So today, I got out a couple painting projects of my own and set Grae up with a little rock painting station.
First we gathered our materials… A few big rocks we found around the yard (washed and dried), some acrylic paint (kids’ washable paint works too but the designs disappear with rain), a few paint brushes, and an old towel.
Gracen thought it was pretty special that she had her very own painting station just like Mama. She’d paint a rock, then move it to the edge of the towel to dry, and then paint another. And when the tops were dry, she flipped them over and painted the bottoms.
Fresh out of rocks but still wanting to paint, I gave her a cement block we had lying around.
And after it was painted in pastels, it was time for a strawberry creamsicle break. The verdict? She loved them so much that she asked for another. My first instinct was to say, “Let’s have something different to eat now”, but then I reminded myself that all they are is plain organic yogurt and strawberries pureed. So two popsicles it was.
These are our little artist’s finished pieces.
After they were completely dry, we found special little places around the yard to tuck them in. With these little surprises hiding around the yard, maybe weeding won’t be so daunting…
Gracen and I had so much fun with this little project today. It’s been flying around the web like crazy recently, (like here and here and here and here) so when we came across plain white bowls for $1 each the other day, I knew we’d be giving it a shot very soon.
All you need is some plain dinnerware, a Sharpie or two, and in our case, some tape, and a pair of scissors.
Because we chose to decorate bowls, I wanted to tape off the inside of the bowl, where the food goes. Some may say that the Sharpie is sealed in by the end of the process, but something just doesn’t seem right about putting Grae’s food on top of permanent marker. Plus, I think having just the rim decorated looks cute. Painter’s tape would have been the obvious choice here, but since I didn’t have any lying around, we made do with packaging tape and it worked just fine.
Grae got started drawing right away. I explained that we weren’t drawing in the middle of the bowl and that we were just decorating around the edge, and that’s exactly what she did (therefore the tape was pretty much unnecessary, but hey, you never know).
When I asked Gracen what I should draw on my dish, her immediate response was, “Apple!” I ran with that idea, and since she’s been so interested in colours for the past couple of months, I got started on a little colours of the rainbow theme of sorts.
Gracen drew and drew and drew and never did I have to encourage her to keep going, choose a new colour, or fill in a blank space. She was having so much fun and was so thrilled about the fact that she was using Mama’s ‘special’ markers that she had more than enough motivation for over an hour’s worth of drawing.
Of course, in that hour, she stopped to come over and admire my dish several times. She’d look with big eyes, then nod her head with a slow, enthusiastic “Yaaaaaaa…” and a sweet little smile on her face, in obvious approval. Then she’d go on to point out the colours and pictures she saw {and shared those she wanted to see in the very near future – my apple, tree, birdie, and banana were all ideas she offered}.
The finishing touch was to happily sprinkle her entire rim with dots of different colours. She’d stop a moment, glance at it sideways, then pick up another Sharpie and add more. This continued again and again until one time she took that same sideways glance, then very nonchalantly announced “All done”. And that was that.
Before we could get it in the house to cure in the oven, she wanted to put her new dish to use, so she carefully browsed through the garden for a handful of ripe strawberries and a sprig of mint.
With her snack gone in less than a minute (yes, she shoved that entire thing of mint in her mouth and chowed down on it like the rabbits at Maplewood Farm), it was time to show off our finished products.
One final touch to add – our names, the year, and for Grae, her bright green signature.
And then into the oven they went. In attempt to “bake the marker on better”, I amped up the heat to 400 and left the dishes in for 45 minutes, despite the general recommendation of baking them at 300 degrees for 30 minutes. Bad idea. Although Miss G’s came out fine, my lighter colours really, really faded, some to the point of becoming nearly invisible. Learn from my mistake. The good news is that there’s an easy fix for mistakes such as mine. Just simply redraw your design and then pop it back in the oven for another 30 minutes at 300.
We let our bowls cool, gave them a good {hand} wash, and used them for dinner. I did try washing them (okay, maybe I even scrubbed a little bit), and so far, so good. The designs still look exactly as they did, and I’m hoping they stay that way for a while at least.
This was such a fun, easy, and inexpensive project and I’d highly recommend giving it a try. While Gracen (almost 23 months old) loved it, I think older kids would like it just as much. On top of it all, wouldn’t a hand decorated mug or dish make a great gift for a grandparent, aunt, uncle, or parent? (I must keep that in mind!)
If you do try this project, here are a few tips I learned along the way:
Plain dinnerware pieces can be found at thrift stores, dollar stores, and places like IKEA for next to nothing.
Before starting your drawing, wash and dry your piece very well to get rid of any oil that may cause your marker to stay put as well as it should.
Darker, vibrant colours turn out better. Yellows and pastels seem to fade and distort.
Do not attempt to bake on your design better by increasing the heat. This will just lead to a mess.
Gently hand wash your items. Do not put them in the dishwasher.
I’ve had tons of fun little activities and cooking projects I’ve wanted to do with Miss G over the last couple of weeks, but all the gorgeous sunshiny weather we’ve been having has allowed for little more than bike rides, outdoor play, visits to the beach, and afternoons at the pool. Darn weather!
Though we’ve been soaking up every moment of our summer, today’s dreariness was a welcomed change. Our house was cool, and we stayed in all morning playing and having fun {without melting}.
The first little activity we tried was what I call moon painting. It’s super simple and involves three basic things everyone with munchkins probably has at home – a tray of baking soda, food colouring dyed vinegar, and a few old medicine droppers / syringes.
See why I call it moon painting? The vinegar and soda mixture bubbles up and leaves little crater-covered splotches when it settles back down again.
Gracen really, really enjoyed this activity. I demonstrated how to using the dropper, and she picked it up very quickly (although it did become harder near the end when there wasn’t as much of the vinegar mixture left). She’d drop a little vinegar onto her tray, then point in excitement as it fizzed up in mound of bubbles. Afterwards, she’d announce the colour of her newest splot.
Pinch…
Drop…
And watch the bubbles!
Moon craters in the making.
We did try using the syringes too, but we quickly learned that they led to great big swamps rather than moon craters, which caused less of a fizz.
So back to the dropper we went.
The end result was a tray covered in colourful craters and a little lady who would have done continued moon painting for the rest of the morning given the chance.
Here’s a little video of Grae hard at play:
And the best part about this activity? Because both vinegar and baking soda are very effective natural cleaners, clean up is a breeze! Who would have thought your little one’s art project would equal a newly-shined kitchen sink?
The other day, while shopping for craft supplies, Miss G spotted a shelf of mini wooden bird houses and immediately got excited. Having painted her own bird house before, she knew exactly what these unfinished little bird homes meant – getting messy and having fun, painting-style. Knowing that her cousins would be arriving in a few days, we decided to pick up four. Gracen was very serious about selecting four different houses and was just as excited to choose paintbrushes, paint, and bird seed. Upon returning home {to Grandma’s house}, I quietly tucked the bag of goodies away until the cousins arrived and we were in need of an activity.
With an hour or so to spare this morning and a little drizzle falling from the sky, we decided it was a good time to bring out the supplies. We set up shop out on Grandma Sue’s patio and let the kiddos dive in.
Grae was an old pro. She very seriously collected paint on her brush and stroked it onto her house, trying to fill in all of the spaces.
Korbin had a plan. Each side would be a separate colour. And when he had finished that task, he brushed some white over top to “make it look cooler”.
Miss Kins had never painted before, and although she dived in eagerly, she wasn’t thrilled about getting paint on herself. She painted a little bit of the roof, and then called it quits.
Chay didn’t join us immediately, but once he saw what was going on, he was up at the table in no time and was all about painting the inside of his house.
Taa-daaa! The finished products. I’d say the birds will be flocking to these little masterpieces, wouldn’t you?
I’ve had dyed rice in my bank of sensory box ideas for a long while now, and since we had a giant bag of Kokuho Rose in our kitchen (the hubby’s favourite… yummy, but white rice) and our dyed pasta turned out pretty well a few days back, I figured we’d give it a go this afternoon. I knew I wanted the colours to be really vibrant, so I decided we’d use gel dyes and something a little more potent than vinegar (hence the jars this time instead of plastic bags). While searching bloggyland, I found that several people suggested using hand sanitizer in place of vinegar or rubbing alcohol. It couldn’t have been more perfect actually. While we didn’t have rubbing alcohol on hand, I did have some yummy-smelling hand sanitizer that’s just been sitting around as I’ve been working on getting my germaphob tendencies under control.
With gel dyes and fruit-scented hand sanitizer involved, I decided I’d get our project started before enlisting the help of Miss G. I collected some jars, put a couple of squeezes of sanitizer in each, and then added gel dye, toothpick and all.
With the sanitizer and dye bottles safely tucked away, I filled a big bowl with rice and invited my little lady to help with the rest of the process.
She was quite thrilled with the giant bowl of rice, so I gave her a few minutes to play with it before getting started on her first job. When good and ready, Grae added about 1 cup of rice to each jar, which turned out to be the perfect amount.
First step complete. I’m just glad you can’t see how much rice is on the floor… Next time I would probably have a wide-mouth funnel on hand just to make the pouring part a little easier / less messy.
With everything inside the jars, I sealed the jars tightly and the shaking began!
Grae and I switched off, giving each of us little breaks and the chance to watch the rice slowly become coloured and more vibrant with time.
Not going to lie… It took quite a lot of shaking. We probably could have stopped earlier, but I wanted the colours to be consistent, so we shook a little more.
This was the end result.
Do you think Grae was happy with the results?
Next, we headed out into the solarium, industrial-sized baking sheet in hand. I poured the rice out, removed the toothpicks, and got rid of a couple of little rice/dye clumps while Gracen oohed, ahhed, pointed, and smelled her newest sensory bin filler.
Just look at those colours! And the perk to using fancy shmancy sanitizer? Deliciously nectarine mint-scented rice (slightly reminiscent of high school nights plagued by cheap, 2 litre coolers, but shhh… Don’t tell Grae.) Now all we have to do is wait patiently enough to let our scented rainbow rice dry!
♥
If youre worried that your little one may put the rice in his/her mouth, try using vinegar instead of hand sanitizer. It should have similar results and will be much safer.
This morning our dyed rigatoni noodles were perfectly dry and ready to be put to use. And thank goodness. Gracen’s been asking about our “pretty papta” since the moment I put it out in the solarium to dry. We chose to use pipe cleaners this time around as this was Grae’s first real time stringing ‘beads’. Of course, any sort of string will do (wrapping one end with tape makes it easier), but I find that the rigidity of pipe cleaners makes it a lot easier, especially for munchkins who are just learning.
To start off, I strung on one noodle and folded the pipe cleaner up around it to secure it (much easier than making a giant messy knot). For the first couple of noodles, I held the pipe cleaner for Grae while she did the stringing and sliding.
And then she was on her own. Easy peasy! She was a pro. We ended up making all kinds of pretties – bracelets, crowns, and necklaces, and Gracen very happily modelled them all.
Of course, if you’re not into stringing them, rigatoni noodles make gorgeous rings too.
I’ve been wanting to get Miss G a wooden beading set for a while now, but had a little idea when passing through the pasta aisle the other day… Why not just dye some rigatoni noodles bright, fun colours like I used to do for my Kindergarten students? I love old school art projects and the macaroni necklace is just that. Old school. Not to mention that dyed noodles aren’t only good for making necklaces… They’re great for sorting, patterning, crafting, and counting too. In the past, I’ve always used a combination of liquid food colouring and rubbing alcohol, but since I wanted Grae to be able to dye the pasta with me, I decided we’d try using vinegar instead. And I’m happy to report that it turned out just fine. Plus, Gracen loved the whole process. Add that to the fact that it’s super easy and cheap, and what do you have to lose? Here’s how to make your own coloured pasta…
Add about a sixth of a large bag of rigatoni to a zip-close bag already prepped with 1 teaspoon of vinegar and about 10 drops of liquid food colouring.
Shake like crazy to evenly distribute the colour and absorb all of the moisture.
Then dump the noodles out on a baking sheet and allow to dry. (If you order your colours right, you can minimize the number of plastic bags you use. We started with yellow, then did orange in the same bag, and then did the {more orange than anything} red. I had planned to just rinse out the bag and then do the cool colours, but by that time my little monkey had really taken a liking to the shaking bit and our bag was toast. We started fresh with a new bag, and did green first, then teal, and then blue.)
By the time we’d moved on to the cool colours, I realized it was a smart plan to double bag. Good thing, because Gracen went crazy.
In the end, this is what our pasta looked like. As you can see, I got a little carried away with the vinegar when dyeing the blues, but I think they’ll be just fine. We set the out in the solarium to dry, and hopefully we’ll be able to do something fun with them tomorrow. By then, I’m fairly certain Miss G will have said, “Papta (pasta) – pretty, pretty, pretty!” and “Hiiiiiiiiiiiiiyeee pretty papta” about a million times.
Yesterday Grae and I took a little walk and picked up a few craft supplies and sensory bin items along the way. Besides a few squishy ocean animals she picked, one of Grae’s favourite items was a little wooden birdhouse she chose out herself. It was just begging for some colour, so today we started our day off right – with some painting. I gave the birdhouse a quick base coat and then Little G got busy. She was very serious about it all and pleaded for more when she had used up all of her paint.
Perhaps she’ll be an artist like her Baba one day?
A couple of months ago, on a very rainy Vancouver day, we had a little family crafternoon and put together Gracen’s first ever grassheads. Ever since, they’ve been sitting atop their mason jars on our kitchen window sill, soaking up the sunshine and drinking up loads of water. Of course, our little magic girl’s grasshead has grown far better than Mama’s or Papa’s.
This is what it looked like this morning… About time for a hairdo of some sort, I’d say. So while Gracen napped, I set up a little play invitation for her. I gathered up some hair goodies, a couple of elastics, and an old hairbrush and set them all out on her table along with her grasshead.
This was her reaction when she saw what I’d set out for her… Kisses for the grasshead! Apparently she liked what she saw. She wasted no time getting started. She climbed up on the chair, and got busy trying to put the clips in. It wasn’t easy, but with a little bit of help, she put every single clip in the grasshead’s hair.
Next up was the headband. That is, until she decided she’d wear it instead!
Done with the first hairstyle! Future hairstylist? I’d say so. Afterwards, I helped her make little grass pigtails. She thought it was completely hilarious and kept stroking her own pigtails and then pointing to those belonging to the grasshead.
Overall, Gracen loved this activity. My only wish is that I had taught her how to properly use scissors by now so that the grasshead could have gotten a little trim! I guess we have something new to work on. ☺
This is something I’ve been planning to make with Gracen for a long while now and I’m so glad we finally tried it today. Moon dough, often also called cloud dough, is a silky, mouldable mixture of just two ingredients many families probably already have on hand. Fun and easy – love it!
To whip up your own batch of moon dough, all you need is some white flour, some baby oil, a mixing bowl, and a whisk.
Start by adding 8 parts flour into your bowl.
Then add 1 part baby oil.
Mix well, ensuring all the large clumps are broken up and the oil is evenly distributed through the flour.
When you’re done, the mixture will be light and fluffy and the clumps should be minimal. That’s it – so easy! Transfer it into a large bin and add some cups, moulds, straws, spoons, and cookie cutters for your little one(s) to use while exploring.
Cloud Dough
8 cups of white flour
1 cup of baby oil
Put the ingredients into a large bowl and mix really well. Store in an airtight container or bag for several months.
After teaching both yesterday and the day before, it was so good to spend the day with my girl today. (Two work days in a row was new for us… I missed her.) We spent the morning at the aquarium visiting sea creatures, and decided to try something new this afternoon.
Sidewalk chalk is a usual thing around here, and we’ve done mess-free sidewalk painting a few times recently, but we hadn’t yet tried sidewalk chalk painting. It was about time.
There are TONS of sidewalk chalk paint recipes floating around the internet, but we just went for it and mixed up our own version. I wanted more of a watercolour consistency rather than a paste in order to allow Miss G to make longer brushstrokes before having to reload her brush, so we used a lot more water than cornstarch. And since I’ve read that the paint dries a lot lighter than it looks when wet, we amped it up by using generous amounts of gel colouring {hence them looking so dark in the photos}.
(FYI – The cool paint swirls are courtesy of my little lady. Who knew a good swift bump of the paint tray right as the photo is being snapped equals awesome swirls?)
Gracen didn’t hesitate to get started. The second I gave her the okay, she got busy dunking her paintbrush and creating her sidewalk masterpiece.
She honestly LOVED it. She was so focused and content that she did not put down her paintbrush once the entire time until the paint was gone. And when it was? There was a prompt, “More, Mama! More!” directed my way. Sadly, I’d used all of our cornstarch and couldn’t whip up another batch, but I’m pretty certain that this will become a regular activity this summer.
The end result was a sidewalk {and toddler} covered in beautifully vibrant colours, a very happy little lady, and much needed bath.
Sidewalk Chalk Paint
1 cup of cornstarch
2 cups (or less, depending on desired consistency) of water
Several small globs of gel icing colouring
Using a muffin tin, put a little food colouring in each cup, varying the colour combinations and the amounts of dye. In a large measuring cup, mix together the cornstarch and water. Carefully pour a little into each muffin cup and mix well.
Take the paint outside {preferably on a tray to prevent spills} along with paintbrushes and watch your little one(s) create a sidewalk masterpiece. Give paints a little stir every once and a while to prevent the cornstarch from sinking to the bottom.
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:
Everybody loves play dough, but chocolate play dough?! Now that’s what I’m talking about. I actually meant to make this with Miss G over Easter weekend, but we were so busy hunting for eggs and spending our days outdoors, that we didn’t get around to it. So this morning we whipped out our ingredients and got busy in the kitchen. And I’m so glad we did. This play dough is so much fun. Not to mention that it smells delicious and is easy to make. Here’s what we did…
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.
Here’s the recipe (which I originally found here):
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 cup salt
1/2 cup cocoa powder
2 tbsps vegetable oil
2 tbsps cream of tartar
2 cups of boiling water
Combine all of the dry ingredients.Add in the oil and mix well. Then stir in the boiling water until fully combined. Dump out the dough on a clean surface and knead if needed. Enjoy!
The original recipe gives you the option of adding 4 drops of glycerine for added stretch and shine. We didn’t have any on hand, but I would definitely give it a try next time around. The dough is plenty soft as is, but not quite as stretchy as our purple “cooked” play dough is.
Our grassheads are officially sprouting their first few hairs! They’ve taken a little longer to grow than usual (we went a little overboard with the seeds and they’re hard to keep moist), but we’re finally seeing some progress! We took them out to the solarium this morning so that Gracen could take a better look…
Upon careful inspection, this is what we noticed…
‘Mama’ has a few hairs growing from the top of her head (and a few growing out from behind her eyes too – oops!)
Poor ‘Papa’ only has one single tiny hair growing atop his head…
And ‘Bubba’ has little hairs growing all around her head and all over her face too!
I chickened out. I bought styrofoam eggs for decorating rather than real ones. *cringe*
But here’s the thing… Poking holes in shells and blowing the contents out of eggs is difficult and time-consuming work. Then giving those fragile egg shells to an excitable toddler? Well that’s just asking for them (and all your hard work) to be crushed. …And hard boiling eggs and then leaving them out at room temperature for the weekend so that they become smelly little balls of bacteria? Yuck. So fake eggs it is this year. Ugh. Note to self: Must come up with a better plan for next year.
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.