Spray Paint Art

The girls had fun making art using spray bottles filled with watered down liquid watercolors (from IKEA). I taped big pieces of paper to our fence and gave them a couple of spray bottles of paint (thanks to Amber for this idea!). E(1) got a little frustrated because she couldn't spray the paint without help, but she still had fun.

I also gave them a pack of blow paint pens, and we all really enjoyed that!

Shaving Cream and Food Coloring Prints

During our "Art on the Beach" week, the girls had a great time mixing food coloring into a tub of shaving cream.

After they played with the shaving cream for a while, we placed a piece of white cardstock onto the shaving cream to make a print. This creates a pretty marbleized print (after you scrape the shaving cream off the paper).

The girls enjoyed the shaving cream so much that we did a variation of the same activity the next day. This time we used powdered tempera paint instead of food coloring. It turns out that blue and yellow don't necessarily make green!

We didn't make any prints this time. They just enjoyed the sensory experience of smearing themselves in shaving cream and then washing it off in the lake.

Painting with Colored Ice Cubes

My girls had a FANTASTIC time painting with colored ice cubes yesterday afternoon!

To make the colored ice cubes, I filled an ice tray with water and added food coloring (a lot of it!) to each cube of water before freezing the cubes. We painted on white cardstock since the paper needs to be thick in order to prevent holes from all of the water.


O loved painting a sheet just one color until the ice cube melted, and E loved painting with all of the colors. I also really enjoyed painting with the ice cubes, and I was surprised by how well it worked (we did this when O was almost 3, and I don't remember it working this well).


O said this was her favorite art project that we've done all summer (we've done a lot...I just haven't found the time to write about them yet). She and E would have painted all night if the ice cubes hadn't melted. Luckily, I refroze them so we can use them another day!

Btw, our hands are stained, but I think it will wear off in a day or 2.

Plaster, Shells, Sand, & Rocks Mask

The girls and I used plaster of paris, shells, and rocks to make a mask on the beach last week during our "Art on the Beach" week.

First, we dug a hole in the sand. Then O(4), E(1), and I looked for shells and rocks to use to make the face. O and E arranged the rocks and shells in the hole.




Then we mixed up the plaster of paris. We didn't have as much as we needed, but it still worked out fine.


We poured the plaster into the hole and let it sit for more than an hour. Then I lifted out our mask. We were very pleased with the end result.

"Art on the Beach" Week...Handprint Canvas

The girls and I have had "Art on the Beach" Week this week, and it's been lots of fun. In fact, I think that we'll continue with daily art projects on the beach throughout the summer, since we've all enjoyed it so much.

One of our projects was to make a handprint canvas for their daddy for Father's Day. The girls decided to paint the canvas blue (blue is O's favorite color). The painted the whole canvas blue using tempera paint.

After the canvas was covered, we pressed their hands onto it to make handprints. We've done this several times in the past, but it's been almost 2 years since the last time, so I thought we needed updated handprints!

Getting the squirmy toddler's hanpdrint was not easy and took several tries...she kept moving her fingers when they were on the canvas. We are all happy with the final result, and we hope Elliott will love it!

Dyed Paper Towel Art

We had a lot of fun dyeing eggs last Friday...

but we had even more fun folding and dyeing paper towels!

The girls had SO much fun (and I did too!), and we were proud of our finished paper towels! After the paper towels dried, the girls folded them and handed them out for people to use as napkins on Easter Sunday. They were very proud and excited about this!!!

Decoupaged Easter Eggs

My mom decoupaged these Easter eggs using Leggs pantyhose eggs, fabric, ric rac, and mod podge more than 35 years ago, and I love them! We've talked about making updated versions for the past few years, but it still hasn't happened...maybe next year.

This is my favorite one.

My mom bought each of the girls a set of huge, plastic Easter eggs from Hobby Lobby last year, and we're hoping to eventually decoupage them using either paper or fabric.

We used the HUGE eggs to change our Easter morning tradition a little bit this year...we usually have a treasure hunt that eventually leads to an Easter basket full of goodies. This year I hid a bunch of small eggs around the room, and 2 large eggs (for each girl) on the futon. The Easter bunny filled the largest egg with goodies for the whole family (chocolate and card games). I'm really, really, really trying to cut back on all of the "stuff" that I give the girls, but it's SO hard because I love toys and children's books even more than they do. This year both girls got swim shirts and shorts (I prefer for them to wear swim shirts and shorts rather than traditional style bathing suits unless they are swimming in an indoor pool...I like them to be covered as much as possible!). O(4) was estatic to open her egg to find a Kit Mini Doll (American Girl),and E(1) was very happy to find a "peebo" classic wooden hippo in her egg. They also got several Schleich animals that I bought at deep discounts from Target. I love the schelich animals since they can play with them on the beach and in the bathtub. Fun times!

Model Magic Birds' Nests

O(4) and E(1) had a bag of Model Magic in their April Fun Box, and we used it to make birds' nests a few weeks ago. The girls loved squishing and shaping the model magic.


We collected twigs before we opened our model magic, and we planned to put the twigs into the nests. However, O didn't like how that looked, so she buried a few twigs within her the walls of her nest.

We left the nests on the porch to dry overnight, and it poured down rain. They got wet, but were ok. We had leftover Model Magic, so we rolled it out and made handprints. Model Magic handprints are SO much better than plaster of paris handprints!

Wet Felted Easter Eggs

The girls, my mom, and I wet felted Easter eggs about a month ago. I still haven't taken a picture of the finished eggs, which is why I haven't posted about this yet. I just realized that I needed to write this post before Easter, so I apologize that I don't have pics of the finished products!

To wet felt Easter eggs you need the following items: plastic, wooden, or styrofoam eggs, wool roving (I bought our wool roving from Hobby Lobby), warm water, and liquid dish soap.

First, we wrapped our eggs in wool roving. Then we dipped our eggs in a bowl of warm, soapy water. We squished the eggs and shaped them with our hands while they were in the water.






After the eggs were well covered with the wool and it seemed somewhat felted, we rolled the eggs on a cooling rack. After they were well felted, we left them to dry. This was a fun and simple activity!




Both girls LOVED this activity!