One of the things i love doing each year is setting up a tree {of some sort} that is just for G. A tree that she can call her own and not have to worry about being careful with. For her first Christmas as a toddler, I made her a giant felt tree that hung on the wall. She loved it {and then mice ate it up while it was being stored in our garage – gross!} The following year, I created a smaller felt board Christmas tree for her, and she still plays with it today. But for this holiday season, I wanted to try something new… A sticky tree! Our fall sticky apple tree was a big hit, as have our other sticky wall activities been, so I assumed this would be too. I was right. ☺
Contact paper is one of those art supplies that we always keep on hand. It’s awesome for using with glitter and is a ton of fun stuck up on a wall, plus if you pick it up on the roll at the dollar store like we do, it’s really inexpensive too. Knowing that it can be found here in Kuwait (my team of first grade teachers used it all the time during our first stint here), I didn’t pack any with us from Canada. So imagine my dismay when I found myself amidst a giant back to school / office supply display the other night with not a single roll of clear contact paper in sight {the horror!} The lovely lady working in the section did turn me onto something else, however, and in fact, I think it’s even better than the rolls we usually get. When she first handed me the package, I was skeptical. Clear book covers? For real? But then I realized a few things… 1) They are essentially just pre-cut sheets of contact paper. 2) They are inexpensive and sold in packs of 10, which covers a lot of future projects. 3) They come flat so I’d have to wrestle with tightly rolled contact paper no longer – score {ecause we all know how annoying that is}!
Gracen just recently started talking about rainbows a lot, which couldn’t have come at a better time with St. Patrick’s Day right around the corner. Since her Valentine’s colouring matching sticky wall activity was such a hit, I decided we’d do a variation of it for the week leading up to St. Patrick’s Day.
This time, using the same method as I did last time, I drew a quick rainbow with clouds on the contact paper.
And instead of construction paper cut-outs, this time I included tissue paper pieces (in coordinating rainbow colours) and cotton balls for the clouds.
I thought Gracen might ask what the cotton balls were for, given that the rainbow drawing really didn’t include any white, but not the case. She immediately dove into the bowl and started filling up the clouds.
Clearly, the cotton balls were the favourite of this activity. If I would have known, I would have attempted to dye cotton balls in all of the rainbow colours and skipped the tissue paper all together, but maybe we can try that another time.
Once all of the cotton balls had been used in one way or another, she began sticking the red tissue paper pieces on, lining them up just so. After a few, she looked at them sideways, then looked at me and exclaimed, “A row, Mum! Just like a real rainbow.” For the next week or so, I can almost guarantee that Miss G will be working on her rainbow rows.
♥
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One of the little activities I set up for Miss and her friends to enjoy at our Valentine’s tea was this sticky wall colour matching game. The idea came from No Time for Flashcards (an amazing activity resource for kids of all ages) and although I followed Allison‘s instructions pretty closely, I made a couple of little changes along the way.
Needed for the project was construction paper in rainbow colours, a heart-shaped paper punch, permanent markers in coordinating rainbow colours, and clear contact paper {which can be purchased at dollar stores and home hardware stores}.
First off, I punched out tons of hearts and mixed them up really well in order to make the activity more challenging.
Next, I rolled the contact paper out on the floor (paper backing side down) and drew rainbow-coloured hearts inside one another on the non-sticky side of the contact paper (using permanent markers for this part is key).
The following morning I peeled the paper off of the corners, and taped the sheet up to the wall before peeling the entire backing off. As you can see, I attempted to make it look cute by taping it to the wall with my black and white polka dotted washi tape, but it simply didn’t cut it. The ugly masking tape had to be brought out, but it worked perfectly.
When Miss G’s little friends came over, they began popping up the hearts all over the place {somewhat to Grae’s dismay}. And though most of them didn’t get put in the ‘correct’ places, they had a lot of fun with it. In fact, at one point I think we had 3 toddlers pressing their faces onto the sticky wall and slowly pulling them away before sticking them back on again. ☺
Of course, once everyone had gone, she got straight to fixing things. The beauty about contact paper is that the paper hearts can easily be removed and reattached if need be.
Grae worked hard on her project for a good long while and it’ll stay up for the next while for her to revisit when desired, which I know will be often.
♥
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