Pumpkin Painting

This is the pumpkin that we managed to grow against the odds (it is the small green one on the left). It was a bit too small to carve and we didn't want to eat it as I wasn't sure green ones would taste very good.

So the only logical use left for it was to paint it. The idea appealed to Poppet a lot.

I gave her a selection of acrylic paints and brushes along with the pumpkin and left her to make it beautiful. She loved using the pumpkin as a canvas and was completely absorbed in making sure she painted every bit of it.

The finished pumpkin sits proudly on the windowsill for all to admire.

I don't know of any better use of the twinkling facility on my camera than this.

Poppet: 2yrs 9mos

Little: 1yr 1mos

Butterfly Garland

I wanted some decorations for Little's Hungry Caterpillar themed birthday party and thought a paper butterfly garland would be pretty. It turned into a great art activity for Poppet! I found a butterfly template online (as I am terrible at drawing) and used this to trace a butterfly onto a thick wad of paper (wallpaper lining) that I had accordion folded. It was really thick and hard to cut but Poppet loved her butterflies "holding hands" and she really enjoyed having something different to paint. 

I put our wipe-clean tablecloth on the floor to give her a surface to work on along with all our painting utensils and a variety of colours of paint. This was different from our usual painting set up and made a very inviting invitation to create. Poppet was completely absorbed by it.

Halfway through painting the butterflies she got distracted by painting her hands and feet so they were "all lovlee and sparklee, look mum!"; she spent ages painstakingly covering every inch of her hands and feet with her beloved glittery paint. Once she was happy with her level of sparkliness she returned to decorating the butterflies.

I helped decorate a few butterflies (I hope it is obvious which ones have benefited from adult input), and then Poppet made sure there was no white paper still showing with her finishing touches. 

They looked beautiful and Poppet had a great afternoon making them. I would say it was her favourite painting project yet and she can been asking to do painting lots more since we did them.

They made a nice addition to the fireplace at Little's birthday party and I plan to put them up in the girls' bedroom, they are just too nice to put away!

Poppet 2 yrs 9mos

Little: 1yr

Playing with bubbles!

   

The girls were given a tube of bubbles by their Grandad at the weekend so yesterday we had lots of bubble related fun! Poppet was so excited and amazed by them, and Little was very cute staring intently at the bubbles floating around her as her sister flew around the room catching them all.

Poppet loved trying to pop (or eat) them all and was so fast that Little rarely got anywhere near one. Only twice did one get near enough to her that she tried to touch it. And the only way I could make that happen was by first quickly blowing lots of bubbles in the opposite side of the room to keep Poppet occupied and out of the way!

Of course monkey was brought in on the action, apparently he liked popping them too. So lovely how she wants to involve monkey in everything nice that she does.

Little finally managing to pop a bubble!

Every now and then I managed to make a really big bubble which Poppet loved - 'that's a big one mummy!'. She wanted to catch the bubbles but they kept popping so we added some glycerine to the mixture as apparently that makes them longer lasting. Then we made a 'bubble catcher' from a pipe cleaner and a lolly stick. She really loved catching the bubbles and holding them for a while.

    

    

Poppet of course insisted that Little also got a bubble catcher but this really only got chewed.

We mixed the leftover bubble solution with some red paint in a bowl and I showed Poppet how to blow it to make bubbles (quite anxiously telling her 'it's not milkshake it's paint OK? Blow don't suck!). But she managed fine.

Once the bubbles were overflowing we pressed a sheet of paper against them to make bubble prints.....

 

We are going to use the resulting painting as wrapping paper for a certain aunties upcoming Birthday!

She is so proud of it she was still pointing out her 'bubble painting' to me this morning at breakfast. Later in the day Poppet asked me for some water in her little pot, then she did this with it, so the activity obviously stuck with her! 

Poppet: 2 yrs 4 mos

Little: 8 mos

Painting Indoors with the Tuff Spot

Poppet has been poorly and requested to do some painting, so we got out the Tuff Spot and laid out her painting bits and bobs along with some clean sheets of paper. There were various brushes and roller type things along with foam stamps (which never look like they are supposed to incidentally), straws, cotton buds, a toilet roll holder, a yoghurt carton and a helicopter (there was paint with various toy cars at her toddler club the other week and she loved making patterns with the wheels).

She started with a bit of loo roll printing and we talked about the circles that it made.....

She was more keen to get a bit mucky this time and started painting her hand with a cotton wool bud. I am glad that she is starting to embrace messy play even though she is a bit of a clean freak at heart. The benefits of messy play are that it introduces the toddler to new sensations and textures, develops their imagination and creativity, helps them discover patterns, and teaches the child that there is a time for mess (and that time is not when you are 15 and I have told you to put your washing away!).

She enjoys when I draw around her hand so this time I used a small brush to paint around her hand, she loved this, keeping very still and drooling in concentration a lot! I guess it must feel quite tickly and nice. She also really liked painting using the helicopter wheels. I really need to pick up some more wheeled vehicle toys as she really enjoys painting like this.

She tried to blow the paint using the straws (I was very clear to her that you can't suck, only blow), but it was too thick..... one day I'll do this with watered down paints as it makes interesting paintings.

She had a great morning and forgot she was ill at all!

Of her own accord she tried out some hand print painting again, no encouragement needed from me this time! She really enjoyed squishing her hands about in the paint and kept her hands there for ages, and did a few really clear hand prints on the paper ( once I told her she needed to do it quickly, down then up).

She did get pretty much covered in paint, but jammies were put straight into the wash and she had a quick 2 minute wash-down in the bath and she was right as rain. The tuff-spot contained the paint really well aside from a couple of little splatters on the floor. It really made painting much easier for us.

Hand and Foot Painting

We tried out our Tuff Spot outdoors for some hand and foot painting the other day. Once again Poppet needed some encouragement to get messy! I gave her paper plates with paint on, toilet roll tubes and cones for printing with, and white sheets of paper weighted down with stones.

She isn't very smiley doing this kind of thing, takes it very seriously. She had a go at it but wasn't overly enthusiastic!

The highlight was, I think, getting to clean up afterwards! Although she did manage to put her slippers back on and cuddle Little before I brought the basin of water out.

Poppet doing what she loves best, washing.