Fall painting fun

Today, I just felt like it was time to make a mess! Getting dirty is fun for kids! And of course, what a great sensory experience! Today, our choice was finger paint- and LOTS of it (I have no idea when these will be dry!)

When you are going to use a ton of paint in one project, make sure you have thick enough paper! We used finger paint paper! 

This is fun, easy and makes a beautiful picture- you can do it for any season/holiday with those certain colours. Because it is fall, and we are enjoying watching the leaves change on the trees, and fall to the ground- we made our final project into a tree! 

Like I said- EASY! I gave each child a piece of finger paint paper, and some fall coloured finger paints! Then they went to work! 

While they worked, I cut out the tree trunk. (you can do this with their hand prints- but, we were already messy, so we just did cut outs!)

Once the kids were done painting all over the sheet, we folded the paper in half and pressed down- giving it a bit of "layers" with the colours, and also a neat "texture".  Then, wait until they are dry enough to cut out. 

We cut these into tree shapes and then glued the trunk on the front of the painting! (and then again, wait until they are completely dry!)

Fabulous Fall Fun! 

The other day, we also made these Halloween Decorations- with our feet and hands! 

Heart collage

Today, we took our craft from an inspiration on pinterest. (yeah, I love that site). We made stamped heart collages. It was very simple, took little time to get ready, and the kids loved it!

First, I took 2 toilet paper rolls and cut them in half. (make sure you know which was the "good" end and which you cut- because if you didn't cut straight they won't stamp properly). Then I squished them down- so they were flat. Then took the one edge and folded it in, and put some tape around it so it would stay like that. I did that for all 4. Then put some paint on some lids so we could stamp.

Then, we went to it! The kids shared the colours, and stamped all over their pages. Sometimes the paint was like a bubble in a wand, so when they stamped it was filled in on the paper! They also thought it was pretty neat to pop that paint bubble first!

Free Craft Thursday

Today, the kids and I went to the mall. We actually bought our Christmas tree- we needed a new fake one! So, it made sense that when we got home, we made ornaments (no, the tree is not going up yet!).

I had bought some plastic ornaments from oriental trading, but I wasn't sure what I was going to do with them. We talked about putting different things in them (they open)- like cotton balls, sparkles, ripped coloured paper, tin foil, etc. But, we finally decided on painting them. I only had tempera paint in Christmas colours, so, I also added some glue. Then, of course, we added sparkles.

Basically, I opened the ornament balls, and put some white glue in. Then a bit of paint, and we shook some sparkles in. Then the kids painted all around the insides. After they were done, we put a "hanger" on them using pipe cleaners.

We did do one ornament per child at a time, and used one paint brush per colour- mainly to keep the ornaments looking festive and not- brown/black!

Day 2 of 25 Christmas Crafts

Today, we painted Snowflakes using "Christmas Tree's".

The kids had a great time using the Pine tree branch for a paint brush. We also talked about how it felt, and smelled!

First I had to go collect pieces of pine tree's! I went outside and found some, but- if you have a real christmas tree, and have some that fell off, you could use those! Then get the paper ready, and white paint. I choose to use black paper- because the white would show up the best!

After we talked about how the branch felt and smelled, we went to work making our snowflakes! 

 Once they were done, we had a night snowfall! (and a good smell in the room!)