Monet painters tape bridge

Following along with topic of interest "Great Artists", i picked up a few craft supplies and headed home to share the plan with the children

 I used the painters tape to make a bridge on each blank canvas making sure to press firmly down at the edges. We borrowed a book from the local library on Monet's artwork and Tara and i discussed which watercolours we would need on our palette to paint this famous painting.

 We put on some French music and painted all afternoon while discussing the types of paint strokes we noticed in the painting....long "stripey" ones for the flowing trees and "dotty" ones for the waterlilies

 We waited a full day for the paint to dry then carefully took off the painters tape to reveal our bridge over our waterlilies.

Animal pet rocks

 This was an inviation to play that i set one this morning for both kids to create Animal Pet Rocks, keeping with our letter of the week A.

Paint,glue,pom poms,eyes,gems,crepe paper and plenty of rocks. Needless to say our house is now FULL of families of pet rocks :)

Celery flower stamping

How beautiful is this celery stalk? We just couldn't throw it out before Tara got her hands onto it with some paint and made some lovely celery flower stamps

It was still dark outside and we were having our morning juice with celery but hey never too early to get the paint out in our house!

Lovely celery flower stamping to start off the day!

Water Painting

The weather here has been very humid and Mason is proving to be a real outdoors baby (well now 13 months not so much a baby). So i set him up with a cup of water and a paintbrush and watched him figure out how to paint with water on the pavers.
Sometimes its the simple things that entertain for hours......

Mess free painting

My kids both LOVE painting, any chance they get it would be their preferred activity. This painting activity has a twist though! Mess free painting!
All you need is paint,tape and sandwich bags.

Squirt your favourite colour into the sandwich bag or add two different colours for the older children to investigate colour mixing. Close the zip lock up firmly. Use tape to secure them on your glass window or door.

Think about the ideal height for your child when you are securing it on. A 7 month old may love to sit and play while placing it higher for a 9 month old will encourage him/her to stand up. This also works for siblings. I placed one quite high for Tara so her little brother was unable to "help" her do her work :)

Great for little hands

And even bigger hands..Here Tara is colour mixing her yellow and blue

Happy Valentines day!!! The great thing about this activity is when your finished mess free painting you can open the sandwich bags and use the paint for real painting, no more waste!

Squeeze painting

I had been saving these squeeze bottles for a while and couldn't wait to let Tara free with some squeeze paint play.


Firstly i washed the bottles and took off the labels


Then i filled them with about 50ml paint 50mil water and gave them a good shake to mix

With some giant paper and a paint smock, she started her squeeze painting!

What a mess but what fun!

The paint from such a height made some lovely splashes

Once Tara saw the paint puddle she just wanted to get into it...that's what our playing is about!

Bottlebrush Christmas painting

What says a traditional Aussie Christmas more than bottlebrush with red and green colours?

Painting using a bottlebrush was just another way to reinvent a simple activity into something new. Lovely idea for Christmas paper or cards too!

Coffee cup stamping

A simple takeaway coffee cup can be transformed into a lovely child sized stamp that can create cute patterns and gift wrapping with Christmas around the corner!
Just squeeze the cup into the mould you require. We used a heart and circle but a star or triangle would also work.
The cup is nice and wide for little hands to grip

Just dip and press firmly

And add any finishing touches. Tara's yellow circles reminded her of a sun!

Chalk Waterpaints

So after grating our chalk to make coloured sand we had some left over and decided to make some paint from it. Tara used the medicine dropper to add water then mixed it until it was thin and runny
Beautiful vibrant colours

Used sparingly, the colours gave a stunning sheen to them on some watercolour paper. So next time you run out paint just grab your chalk and get grating!

Bubble wrap printing

We had these craft stamps that have chunky handles on them great for little hands so i added bubble wrap over them and secured them with tape. One was a smaller sized bubble wrap and the other had big circle bubble wrap
Tara chose her colour paint and got started printing the different size bubble wrap prints. This made for great wrapping paper

Carrot Stamps

We have tried potato stamps when Tara was younger but now she is older stamping is still a hit but this time we tried carrot stamps!
I top and tailed a few carrots and then carved some shapes and letters on either ends with a sharp knife. Dipped into some paint we had 6 fun stamps to play with
Finished art work..

Cupcake liner flowers

What can you make on a rainy day with left over cupcake liners?
.........A cupcake garden!!!
Just use paint or a marker for your stems and glue a cupcake liner on top. These make lovely presents for mums or grandmas for mothers day!

Paper Mache Hot Air Balloons

This project was started last year and had been a work in progress but finally thanks to Easter i was able to find the baskets i was searching for and we could complete it! With some blown up balloons we started paper mache by ripping newspaper strips and dipping them in a flour/water mix then placing them onto the balloon. We did about 4 layers of this It got very messy and turned into an unexpected sensory activity. The final product was left to dry for a few days

Once completely dry Tara painted hers red. We popped the balloon inside and cut around the bottom to allow us to get our hand inside

Then i used a knife to pierce a whole in the center top of the balloon, threaded some fishing wire through and tied it off with a button. This will give the balloon some strength to be able to hang up

At the bottom of the balloon i made 4 holes and threaded some rope though to attach to the basket. These are the baskets i was having trouble finding but check your local shops now and im sure you will find them stocked up for Easter.

My blue one was made slightly different with thin ribbon glued onto the paper mache and attached straight to the basket

And your hot air balloon is ready to take people for rides!

Eventually these will be put in the kids rooms, Easy and cheap room decor!

Toilet Roll Designer Cuffs

I'm forever trying to come up with fun things to make with our mountain of toilet rolls so this was just one that kept us busy for an afternoon I set out a tray with paint,gems,stickers and glitter as well as a toilet roll cut in half length ways and sideways and Tara began to decorate......... Designer kids fashion cuffs ready to match to your next outfit!

Toothbrush painting

After a visit to the dentist we swapped our toothbrushes for new ones and decided to use our old toothbrushes for some fun flicking painting.
Using different colours, Tara dabbed the toothbrush into the paint and the used her finger to flick the paint onto the paper. She told me it looked like the night sky-i agree!