paint cut paste

one year ago, when novi was 26 months old, we went to a spring festival where they offered many crafts for the kids. this is an easy and fun one that novi enjoyed making — clothespin butterflies! all you need are a few household items: a pipe-cleaner, a clothespin, and a coffee filter, as well as some markers.

first, let your child’s imagination run wild in coloring all over the coffee filters with the markers. if it is raining when you do this – you know those spring showers can be an artistic blessing – then put the colored (with a water-based marker) filters onto a cookie sheet outside for a minute to let the colors bleed, then dry them out before proceeding. you can see that effect from when we made coffee filter flowers last year. even if it’s not raining, the butterflies can be lovely. just let your child color away until his or her heart is content.

then bend a pipe cleaner (or half of one, actually) into an antenna shape. crinkle your coffee filter in the center and clip that into the clothespin along with the pipe cleaner. and there you have your winged springtime friend…

flutterby - ours got a bit wrinkled, but you get the idea

my artsy-momma-friend just posted this paper-towel-art project on her pink & green mama blog, and i knew that we had to try out right away. anything having to do with markers and rainbows makes novi squeal with glee! (if you’ll recall our last wet marker activity, she was quite excited!)

it’s like a little color-science experiment at home. all you need are markers (we used my faaaav mr. sketch markers so i could sniff the turquoise one like a freakshow,) paper towels, and an eye-dropper. then have your little one draw small circles onto the paper towels. (you’ll probably have to hold the paper towels in place and taut as s/he draws. otherwise there could be some frustration.) then show your little one how to use the eyedropper to drop some water into the center of the circles s/he has drawn. then let the ooooo’s and aaaah’s just come…

as my friend said in her blog, this exercise is a cool way to show how to separate out the primary colors that make up a secondary color marker. (for example, the green marker will separate into blue and yellow after the water bleeds for a while.) for us, it was fun when this worked in reverse. we drew concentric circles of two primary colors, like yellow circle inside of a blue circle. then when she dropped water into the center, they blended into green.

a cat's eye?

mostly my little one was just psyched to “watch the rainbows grow!” and learning how to use a water dropper.

watch closely

and i couldn’t help but get in on the action with a little chakra aura image of my own. (gosh, i can’t wait to practice again!)

seven

today’s art activity was as simple as a summer morning. sidewalk chalk + toddler = instant fun. it’s one of those art supplies you can break out at almost any age, and make an ordinary sidewalk into something much more vibrant!

sidewalk chalk

the thing is, our driveway is gravel, so we opted to decorate the stepping stones in our backyard. with a 2.5-year-old, you could create a hopscotch board and teach her about jumping into the squares (if you have a driveway or sidewalk) or draw circles in which your child can make faces or any other picture. ooooh, early childhood mandalas! [art therapists: drool here.]

little tagger

i outlined a tree shape and novi added apples into it. i drew a cloud and she made rain under it and lightening in the sky. we traced novi’s foot and gwee’s (her grandmommy) foot, and then “painted” the toenails. sidewalk chalk is a lot of fun on a nice day, but i also enjoy drawing on wet concrete when it has just rained, as the chalks come out more vibrant and can create delightfully impressionistic images.

it feels almost too simple to blog about, but sidewalk chalk is one of the joys of childhood that should rightfully be documented. let this be a reminder that even the simplest things can entertain your kids and engage their imaginations.

our decorated stepping stones