Kids Art Kit: Finished Mini Album

Earlier in the week I shared the Kids Travel Art Kit I put together for our beach trip.  It was a perfect way to have some down time in the afternoon rather than watching television.  

When I got back home, I put added our photos into the book to create a simple, but fun mini album.

Here are some of our pages...

I love how each page is totally handmade and unique!  And I love including all of Anna's fun artwork.  I'm sure she'll love looking back on it when she's older!!

Kids Travel Art Kit

I love everything that Elizabeth Kartchner does, so when I saw her diy: art kit I knew I wanted to create one for our upcoming beach trip.  

I pretty much just went through my stash of paints, stickers, buttons, markers, crayons and glue sticks and put together this super easy, but super fun travel art kit.

Prior to going on our trip I cut up some construction paper, watercolor paper and papers from our watercolor matching activity to make a little book to paint in, doodle in and capture our memories.

I tucked all the art supplies into a pencil pouch and put it all in our travel bag.

The first day of our mini vacation was beautiful, but then the storms came in and we had a some cloudy and rainy afternoons.  Since my 21 month old still takes good afternoon naps, Anna, Dada and I lounged inside and painted and doodled.  

Once we got back home I printed out the pictures from our trip (and the ones from our Instax camera) and put them in our book and made a little mini vacation album (which I'll share more of later).  

It was so fun having the art supplies with us and it was a great mid-afternoon break for Anna, who no longer naps, but really should....if you get my drift.  Painting and coloring is quite relaxing....even for adults!!

Be sure to grab your art supplies and make a little art kit for your next trip!  I'll be sure to make one for all of our trips!

Simple Watercolor Activity

This is a super simple watercolor activity that I did with my daughter (3) and son (1 1/2) the other day.  My son just liked playing with the watercolors and jar of water, but my daughter really enjoyed and requested to do more and more.

I saw the idea over at Hello Bee.

I printed off my daughter and son's names using this free font.  The font is an outlined font so my daughter (and son) were able to use the watercolor paints to color in their name.

I also spelled out the word rainbow using the colors of the rainbow and had my daughter match the paint color and the font color.  She reeeeealy enjoyed doing this one!  Rainbows are all the rage at our house right now.  The hubby and I were actually lucky enough to see an entire rainbow over our house the other night.  It was the first time I've ever seen the whole entire thing and it was quite breathtaking!

Download your font and get your watercolor paints ready!

This is a fun one!!

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DIY Tabletop Art Easel

I saw this idea during one of my Pinterest browses and thought it was pretty genius.

My son and daughter love to paint.  Well....my daughter loves to paint.  My son loves to paint paper and eat paint....silly boy.

I put these two easels together while we were traveling at our Mimi and Poppy's house.  The kids had a great time using them and I even toted them home for use here!  

I didn't follow any sort of tutorial, but it's pretty easy to figure out.  Just cut off a part of a box and then loop the two ends together to make a triangle shape.  I taped the bottom two pieces together with scotch tape and they have held up great.

I added a little close pin to Sweet Girl's so she could easily change out her paper.  Little Man just gets a piece of tape.  That close pin would be waaaaay too distracting for him!  

I also keep our used egg cartons and recycle those as paint holders.  They work out perfectly and are easy for tiny hands to hold!

Happy painting!

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Washi Tape Fun

I love washi tape and I love using with all my crafts, but I usually never, ever let those sweet little fingers get at it!  Then, Jean at The Artful Parent mentioned how Discount School Supply now sells a variety pack, I couldn't wait to get some for us to play with!!  And it really is as fun as it looks!

The tape is pretty easy to tear and Sweet Girl had a lot of fun just tearing it off the roll.

She even made a self portrait (hmmm..she's missing an arm).

We also played around with building some letters.  I would made a letter using a few pieces of tape and then I would have her place her tape either over my letter or beside it to try to copy it.

Little Man kinda got in on the action, but he wasn't much of a fan of it because it tended just to stick to his  cute little fingers.

He did enjoy building towers with it, though...

DIY Watercolors

I'm always on the lookout for natural art products, especially since my little man is still at the age where he loves to "taste-test" everything.  When I came across this recipe at Lilac Silhouette for watercolor paints I was super excited to make them.

Supplies needed:

Baking soda

Cornstarch

Vinegar (the recipe calls for white but I used apple cider)

Light corn syrup

Food coloring

Combine 3 tablespoons each of the baking soda, cornstarch and vinegar and add 1 1/2 teaspoons of the corn syrup. Mix completely. Pour the mixture into paint trays (my trays came in a six pack from Michaels).

Stir in a drop or two of your food coloring to create your desired palette and leave out to solidify for several hours. I let ours "dry" for about four hours, but there was still some water on top, which I just wiped off.

(updated....they were perfect after drying overnight)

Here are our watercolors after I wiped off the top layer of water.

Sweet Girl was so ready to dive right in and paint.

So fun!

Happy painting!

Recycled Crayons

One of the things we made this summer was crayon blocks from recycled crayons.  These still get lots of use at our house and I really love how "chunky" they are for little fingers.  Sweet Girl tends to gravitate towards the crayons made using a mini muffin tin rather than the ones from a regular sized muffin tin.  I guess they are just easier for her to hold and color with.  I'm adding these to my "to-make" list for Christmas gifts.  I'm hoping to pick up some cute Christmas molds that I can use!

Art Box Fun

I put together an art box for Sweet Girl to play with whenever she is in a crafty mood!!  This box gets used a lot and I love that she has everything she needs to cut, paste, glue, lace, etc.

This is a tackle box from Walmart.  It was only a couple of dollars, and it's not the sturdiest, but it seems to work for us.

Most of the items in the box are either from my craft stash or the dollar store.  Here's what we have in our box:

Pipe cleaners

Googly eyes

Sticky backed jewels

Pom poms

Bells

Pony beads

Popsicle sticks

Feathers

Clothespins

Glue

Sticky backed stickers

Sweet Girl enjoys making all sorts of things from the box and I love how open-ended it is.

 

She also enjoys using the pony beads and pipe cleaners to make necklaces and bracelets.

What about you all?  Do you have an art box or an art station?



Art Storage

I love keeping all of Sweet Girl's art and projects but they were starting to take over all the corners of our playroom.  And...I was becoming a hoarder...keeping everything she made and did.  Finally, one day I went through and sorted, purged and saved.  I only ended up keeping a few special pieces and took pictures of the rest of them.  I picked up a scrapbook paper box from the craft store, cut out some vinyl letters and voila....an art box. 

The size of the box is pretty large (12x12) so it accommodates most of her projects.  Some of the larger paper (like easel paper) I folded in half, but I'm sure there will be some that I don't want to fold and possibly mess up.  We'll cross that bridge when we get there.

I love how compact and neat it is!! 

Toddler Approved Art Supplies

We love doing everything "artsy-craftsy" at our house!  We typically do some sort of art or craft almost everyday!  I love how art allows Sweet Girl the opportunity just to explore the different materials and to "make" whatever she wants!!  One of my all time favorite toddler art books is Mary Ann Kohl's First Art.  I try to incorporate her quote "It's the Process, Not the Product" into our art experiences.

Here are our ten favorite art supplies!!  All toddler approved!!

1. Crayola Twistables Slick Sticks 

These fun little crayons are probably our favorite art supply at the moment!!  They are thick enough for little fingers to hold.  They don't break.  And they mark soooo smoothly!!  The only downside is that they are a little on the pricey side for toddlers (but I still think they are worth the money!!).

2. Tempura paint 

You just have to have tempura paint if you have a toddler!  We use the Colorations washable tempuras from Discount School Supply.  For finger painting, I add liquid soap to our tempura paint for easier cleanup!!

3. Crayola Pip-Squeak Markers 

Like the Crayola Slick Sticks, these are also chunky and allow little fingers to hold them with ease. 

4. Sidewalk chalk 

We have a large bucket of chalk in our garage that gets pulled out almost every time we play outside. 

5. Liquid Watercolors 

Our watercolor paints are from Discount School Supply.  I usually diluate the watercolor paints so the bottles last quite a while!!

6. Do-A-Dot Markers
We use these when Sweet Girl wants to paint, but I don't want to clean up a big mess.  They are perfect for little hands.

7. Sticky tape and white glue

Sweet Girl loves this little dispenser of tape because she can do it all by herself!  And what toddler doesn't love glue?

8. Stickers 

We use all kinds of stickers for simple collages.  I pick up most of my stickers at the dollar store, dollar section at Target or the craft store. 

9. Art Easel 

Sweet Girl uses our art easel almost every day!!  I love how it has a dry erase board, chalk board and a roll of paper.  I frequently move our art easel throughout the house to keep it "new" to Sweet Girl.  Jean from The Artful Parent wrote a great entry about encouraging continued interest in your child's art easel.

10. Household odds and ends

You know...toliet paper rolls, paper towel rolls, bubble wrap, styrofoam, cardboard.