Just a few short weeks ago I was introduced to the blog Paint & Prozac and our daily lives have not been the same since! This fantastic blog features lots of very basic art projects that a non-artsy parent can do with his or her little ones. Some of the projects are even appropriate for kids as young as 6 months, so you know they are not time-intensive, messy or complicated.
The first one I tried out with my 16-month-old daughter was this adorable prickly cactus, and it went remarkably well!
ITEMS NEEDED:
paper
scissors
rice
green food coloring
Ziploc bag
glue
plastic or cardboard box (must close completely, clear would be great if available)
We happened to have some fairly thick brown paper lying around, but any sort of paper or cardboard would do. You could even let your child color or finger paint it beforehand! We started off by cutting a cactus shape out of the paper (which I sketched in pencil beforehand). Make sure your cactus will fit inside the box you have chosen.
Next, color the rice! Place several handfuls of rice into a Ziploc baggie and add a few drops of green food coloring. (We probably used too much, but it made our cactus a very vibrant green!) Let your child shake the bag and squish and swirl the rice around. If you’re working on color recognition, this would be a great time to point out the new color of the rice and have your little one think of other things that are green.
After that, place the cactus cut-out inside your box and cover it in glue. Allow your child to pour or sprinkle the colored rice over the top of the cactus. Then, closing the box securely, have him or her shake it to make sure the rice gets all over the cactus! While shaking, we I took some time to discuss cacti – telling her that cacti grow in the desert, where it’s very hot, and explaining that that’s where her great grandparents live.
We peeked in a few times before we were satisfied with the rice coverage. Then we admired the cactus for a few moments and placed it on the counter top to dry. Clean-up involved dumping the remaining rice into the trash, and putting away our supplies.
This project was fun and simple, and required virtually no clean-up, which is one thing I look for when selecting projects for my daughter. If there is any chance an activity will require me to pull scrape out of her hair, vacuum up rice or cereal bits, scrub crayon marks off my tile floor, or anything else remotely strenuous or annoying, it’s just not going to happen. We’ll color instead.
*MOM TIP* I will share, though, that I typically ease the burden of craft time clean-up, by stripping my daughter down to a diaper. We also often move to either the kitchen floor or the bathtub as they’re the most easy-to-clean spaces in the house. My child can make a mess of herself finger painting in the tub and once she’s finished, I can hose her and the mess off and move on to something else just as quickly as she does. Perfect!
Anyway, if you have any crafting tips or activity ideas, please share! We love to create!
Lindsay is a relatively new mother, still awkwardly navigating this busy world of Crayola and Mother Goose. She is thrilled to be working from home in the area of graphic design and social media during naps and after bedtime, spending the rest of her waking moments changing diapers, reading books that rhyme, dancing to songs about food, painting with her fingers and love-love-loving her adorable, brilliant, hilarious daughter, Soleil. Other than motherhood, Lindsay enjoys bargain hunting at garage sales and writing on the side. For more fun girl moments, visit Musings and Tidbits.
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