Toddler Art Tuesday - Painting with Eggs

Yes, we finally have another installment of 'Toddler Art Tuesday'! As the boys were watching a TV show, I quickly went to Pinterest to find a fun Easter themed activity to do with the boys. I found this egg painting activity from Hands On: As We Grow. I thought the boys would love it!

I taped construction paper onto the boys' slides. Each kiddo got 4 containers with paint and 4 plastic Easter eggs. The idea was for the boys to dip the eggs in the paint and then roll the egg down the paper. They did pretty well with it but honestly they didn't love it as much as I thought they would. However they still played outside with this set-up for about 20 minutes because Matthew was happy just playing with the paint (and thus covering his big 'ol belly with paint!) and John liked driving the trucks down the paint.









You can see this is not a clean and neat project. I am totally fine with that though!





Even the bath afterwards was messy as Matthew decided to use the left over paint on his hands to paint the bathtub. Thank goodness for washable paints!



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Toddler Art Tuesday- Making Wrapping Paper

Last week I had the boys do some painting on large sheets of blank paper to make wrapping paper. I put out Christmas cookie cutters for them to make prints with finger paint (like we did HERE and HERE) and they also decided to simply finger paint. Well, and Matthew wanted to eat the paint. Typical! This was an easy and fun activity and now we have very unique wrapping paper for small gifts! I don't have pictures of the final product, but here are some pictures of the boys in action.







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Toddler Art Tuesday - Leaf Wreath

Now that we are past Halloween, I will be doing fall and Thanksgiving activities with the boys in tot school. So, our toddler art date with my sweet nieces was to make leaf wreaths.




We first took a walk down the street to hunt for leaves. The older kids used pumpkin buckets while the younger kiddos took a ride in the wagon (pulled by strong boy John!). It was so nice to be able to do something outside for a little while!











Then we took our treasures inside where I had cut the center of paper plates out to make paper wreaths. I mixed up brown paint and glue for John and Bella to paint the wreaths. While the paint/glue mixture was still wet, they attached their pretty leaves. I was surprised the leaves actually stuck to the wreath but the glue/paint mixture actually worked!







I think they had a good time with this project and their wreaths are simply gorgeous. :)




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Toddler Art Tuesday - magazine collage

Last week I did an impromptu craft with the boys. I took a Pottery Barn Kids catalog and used it to cut out pictures from their Halloween section. Then each boy got a sheet of colored paper and a cup of glue with a q-tip. John was able to mostly glue his pieces on his own (great practice in fine motor skills!) but I obviously had to help Matthew glue his pieces.



Matthew actually did really well with putting the paper glue side down on his paper...even though he kept trying to pull the pieces back off.




Here are the finished products:

Matthew's:


John's:


This was really easy and a great way to reuse all those catalogs that show up at your house! I am already saving the pages with Christmas pictures. :)

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Toddler Art Tuesday - New addition

If you hadn't noticed yet, I didn't put a post for Toddler Art Tuesday. Last week my sister and I had the kiddos do a Grandparent's Day craft that I haven't taken a picture of yet. I have been really busy the last couple days with random house stuff and Etsy orders.

However, more importantly, we have a new little baby to add to our Toddler Art Tuesday cousin gang. My youngest sister, Emily, had her baby on Sunday! I am so excited for her and Jeremy. Here is the only picture I have on my camera that was decent (hospital lighting isn't flattering!). This is Baby Emma and Aunt Jen (that's me!). Emma is my third niece so we now have 5 little ones to plan for on our Toddler Art Tuesdays!




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Toddler Art Tuesday - ABC book

If you saw my post on the Build-A-Library baby shower, one of the activities we planned for the guests was to help create an ABC book. We had the letter pages printed out and the guests were to draw a picture and sign their name on a page. When we got home, there were a couple letters that weren't completed so Allison and I had the kids help create pictures to finish up the book. Here is what we came up with:

N is for New York (by Bella and Lilly)



J is for Jungle (by John)



X is for X-ray (a tracing of Lilly's hand)



E is for Emma (by Bella)



Once all the pages were complete I laminated them and bound them with binder rings. I added some ribbon to make it prettier for Miss Emma. I think it is a very special book for Emma considering so many different people had a part in it. I also like that we used binder rings so Emily can use them as flash cards or use them for games with Emma later on. Quite the double purpose present!




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Toddler Art Tuesday - Baking

Last week we did baking themed activities for tot school. So I wanted to match up our Toddler Art Tuesday activity to the theme. Since we were baking and decorating cupcakes, I connected the activity to the book 'Cupcake' by Charise Mericle Harper. It is a pretty cute book and John wanted me to read it to him 429 times last week.



Before my nieces came over, I had the boys make chef hats for our baking adventures. I cut a strip of white paper and let them color it. John made all of 3 lines claiming he drew a hat and Matthew didn't color his at all. Typical! I guess I should cut Matthew some slack considering he is 13 months. :)







Then I wrapped the strip around each boy's head to get the size right and taped into a circle.



Lastly I taped some tissue paper to the inside of the paper strip to creat the top of the hat.




The BEST part was after all that work (taping is hard work!) John wouldn't wear his. Again, typical.

Once the girls came over we made icing from scracth and then decorated cupcakes. Bella's turned out...interesting. I think she used the entire bottle of sugar sprinkles on her three cupcakes.









Notice that Bella has a cute chef's hat. That is because I sewed it for her as a Christmas gift. :) My poor boys are slighted sometimes, huh?




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Toddler Art Tuesday- Fish

Last week I had the idea to make a fish using colored scraps from magazines. I thought maybe if the different colors were layered across a piece of paper, it would look like fish scales. Well, when asking a 2 year old to do this project, it doesn't quite come out like fish scales. So, instead, we glued...



...and mommy helped glue some more...



...and cut into a fish shape.




Are we impressed yet??

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