Random Mobile Shots

Lily and I painted a large canvas for Waldo for Father’s day. Painting her name was her idea and I loved it.

Waldo's father's day canvas

I don’t remember how this started, but it ended with Lily snuggling with her balance bike.

snuggling with her bike

I saw a a picture on Pinterest of a poofball soccer game for kids, but didn’t really take the time to read it. But it seemed like a good idea so the other day I took a small piece of posterboard, drew a line on each end and a circle in the middle and Lily and I spend a bunch of time blowing the poofball across the board with straws. She thought this was the best fun.

poof ball soccer

The weather has been beautiful so we took advantage of it and had lunch al fresco.

Lunch al fresco

Lunch al fresco

My Mother-in-Law’s heart porch hanging thingy. It shines little bits of light all over the porch and inside the house. At first it was a little annoying seeing the little lights move around out of the corner of my eye, but now I really like it.

Hearts in the sky

Yesterday I needed to clean the bathroom and decided that Lily could help. She loved the idea.

Cool gloves

I clean the bathroom with vinegar and water so I felt she was fine helping. She did the sink while I did the bathtub.

Little helper

A few months ago I bought a sand and water table for Lily and for the first time yesterday I put sand in it. I knew it would make a mess, but figured it wouldn’t be too bad. Boy was I wrong. There was mud all over the back porch within minutes of pouring the sand in the dry side. Lil didn’t’ even play with the water side except to put the water in the sand. she played for a long time and had a lot of fun, but it will be a very long time before we do this again.

Really dirty sand and water table

Homemade sidewalk paint

A few days after we made the fizzy sidewalk paint I decided to try regular sidewalk paint. I figured Lil would still like it even without the fizzy and spray bottle aspects and I wasn’t disappointed. She loved it and I had to call it quits way before she was ready. It was a lot colder that day then I had realized so we only got about 20 minutes of playing in before I was a Popsicle and decided that we had to go in.

Homemade sidewalk paint

I mix about a cup of corn starch and 2/3 cup of water, once it’s dissolved add a good squirt of clear dish soap and mix well. I then divide it into an old 6 well muffin tin and then add food coloring to it. It washed off easily and is a blast. I have found that depending on the kind of food coloring I use it might stain the sidewalk a little bit, but the sun will bleach it out soon enough.

Homemade sidewalk paint

Homemade sidewalk paint

As you can tell Lily loved this.

Homemade sidewalk paint

Homemade sidewalk paint

I would give this a 9 out of 10 crayon rating. It took about 2 minutes to put together and washes up wonderfully. Best part of all, Lily loved it.

Painting with homemade fizzy sidewalk paint.

I found this on Pinterest one morning last week went right out and made it for Lil.

IMG_20120509_095015

It really couldn’t have been easier to put together. I had everything in the kitchen or craft closet so it cost me nothing to make which means it’s either a guaranteed failure or the best thing to ever happen. ever!

Homemade fizzy sidewalk painting

Fizzy Sidewalk paint:

About 8 big spoonfuls of baking soda

1/2 cup of cornstarch

Warm (almost hot) Water

Food coloring

Mix the dry ingredients and then add water stirring until its not too thick.  I probably used about a cup, but I am not 100% sure.  Once I separated it into the muffin tins, I used Wilton pastel food gels for the colors. This was so much fun. It comes with pink, yellow, blue and green so I got to show Lil how mixing colors makes new colors. We have pretty much perfected orange and purple at this point.

This paint dries very quickly – but washes off fairly easily. However the darker colors did stain the driveway a bit, but now even that has faded.

Homemade fizzy sidewalk painting

The blog I got the recipe from called for a container of baking soda, but I buy huge bags of baking soda from Costco so I just guessed at the amount.  Next time I make this I will use more baking soda because there wasn’t nearly as much fizzing as I would have liked.

Homemade fizzy sidewalk painting

Homemade fizzy sidewalk painting

Homemade fizzy sidewalk painting

The fizzing came from vinegar in a spray bottle.  Lil loves spray bottles so this was hands down the best thing in the world. Mom letting her just go free with a spray bottle and not a cat in sight to get in the way. YAY!

Homemade fizzy sidewalk painting

Homemade fizzy sidewalk painting

Homemade fizzy sidewalk painting

Homemade fizzy sidewalk painting

I gave this a 6 out of 10 crayon rating because of my bad proportions. I’m pretty sure Lil would give this a 8 rating; which YAY! We’ll try again with more baking soda.

*I don’t have an explanation for the helmet. It’s just part of her daily uniform lately. Whatever floats your boat kid.

Painting with Water

Like I said yesterday Lil’s cousins Brock and Bryce were over a few days ago.  After they finished their Popsicles they wanted to make a tent out of the sheet they had been using to sit on while eating their snacks.  While Rita (My Mother in Law) was making the tent I grabbed 3 paint brushes that I wouldn’t mind if the bristles got ruined, some sidewalk chalk and two bowls of water.  I put the bowls down on the patio and laid the brushes in the bowls. I explained to the kids that they were painting water and told them to have fun. They all loved the idea of painting and started making designs on the patio.  Once Rita was done with the tent they even started painting the tent sheet.  Brock (almost 4) was happily painting away, but kept saying to me “why are we using water? My Mom has paint for us to paint with”. I laughed and said that I have paint too, but today we were doing something different. He probably brought it up 4 or 5 times. I thought it was hilarious that he was totally having fun with the water, but wanted to know where the paint really was. I had a couple of opportunities to point out that if we had been using real paint we couldn’t do this or that and he still wanted to know where the paint was.

I highly recommend this activity.  It kept the three of them busy for 30 or more minutes and I only had to break up a few squabbles.

Painting with water

Painting with water

Painting with water

Painting with water

Painting with water

Painting with water

Painting with water

After a while Lily decided to try the broom as a painting tool.

Painting with water and a broom

Painting with water and a broom

Painting with water and a broom

She seemed satisfied with the broom, but I think my bowls were just way too small.

Painting with water and a broom

Of course in the end everyone ended up inside the tent. And no one ever touched the sidewalk chalk.

In a tent

I’d say this gets a 10 out of 10 crayons. It’s easy, cheap, has a very low mess factor, and everyone loved it.

Dropper Painting

I saw a form of painting with a dropper on a blog or Pinterest some time ago and filed it away as a fun thing to try at some point. (Sorry I can’t find a link for where I first saw it). I decided that Lil would probably like it, so I searched high and low for droppers, never once did I think to look on the ever holy Amazon, silly me. Anyway I finally found some at Hobby Lobby and everything fell into place.

These pictures are from our second attempt at dropper painting. The first time was pretty much a specular failure due to poor planning on my part.

I put some paint in the muffin tin wells and watered it down a bit.  I grabbed some small posterboard and Lily went to town.  Because the level of the paint was pretty low she had some issues with sucking the paint up into the dropper, but with a little help from me she got it.
Dropper painting

Dropper painting

Dropper painting

She loved making the bubbles and then playing with them.

Dropper painting

She liked dragging the end of the dropper though the paint almost as much if not more than dropping the paint in the first place.

Dropper painting

This last picture is from our first attempt and I think you can see why it turned out so poorly.  I had to do all of the sucking into the dropper because it was on the plate. I don’t know what I was thinking.

Dropper painting

All in all dropper painting isn’t Lily’s thing right now. I’m sure I’ll try again at some later time and maybe she’ll like it better.  For now I’m giving it a 3 out of 10 crayon rating.

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