We love to read and love to do art & are participating in Michelle’s st+ART activities found in her blog, A Mommy’s Adventures, with the book, My Purple Toes, by Blair Hahn.   My Purple Toes is about a Dad who decides to be silly and enjoy being different by painting his toes purple .  He then discusses the reactions of his family members (embarrassment and giggles) to his purple toes and the fun places his toes get to go wiggle.  Want your own copy?  Leave a comment below for a …

My preschoolers love to paint – and I love to spice up life a bit! Who wants to eat pretzels from a boring bag clothed up with a plain old clip? Not me!
.

…and viola! We have some fun and funky clothespins!
.
Do you have any fun painting projects you’ve done with your kids lately?

My preschoolers love to color with crayons and love to paint – why not do both? This post was adapted from the post on resist crayon paintings on The Activity Mom several months ago. It has been mulling around in the back of my brain as a craft activity waiting for the perfect moment. This craft is really quite simple, even my 18 month old joined in on the fun. First you color your paper with crayons, then you paint over the crayoned drawing. We …

We had leftover egg dye from dying our eggs a few days ago, and if you know anything about the Quirky household from reading this blog over the last few months, our preschoolers love to paint!  We used a wide variety of dripping/spraying tools from paintbrushes that we flicked, old toothbrushes that we sprayed, straws that we used as drippers,  and even a cotton ball that we used to smear the dye on our papers.  I loved the effect of the dye on the paper!  If you want to make …

We had a lot of fun decorating eggs this past weekend, it was part of a trial run before my last min “the night before Easter” dying eggstravaganza! We made several different types of egg decorations, polka-dots, painted, striped, little “men” and speckled. The kids had a blast and we even learned something about color theory in the process.  Maybe some of our eggs will inspire you.
.
.
.
What we used to decorate our Easter Eggs:

White vinegar
food dye
a dozen or so eggs
medicine dropper
tacky glue
rubber …

This is my preschoolers favorite way to paint!  Basically, it is what it sounds like; shaving cream mixed with paint.  We usually mix the shaving cream with tempera paint as it has the smoothest consistency and is the cheapest!  We have three tubs of primary colored paint: red, blue and yellow that we mix to get a whole host of colors.  When mixed with the cream, the colors look more neon and bright.

Are you struggling to find something to give/make for someone on your list?  Wanting to give a handmade gift that people will really use?  In this day of heightened environmental awareness a canvas bag is a great gift.  I found this was a project that showcased the work of  even the youngest budding artists in an aesthetically pleasing way.   Use it as the gift itself or as an eco friendly alternative to wrapping paper.
Materials to make your tote bag:

old cereal box to use as a “frame”
tote bags (pick the size and …

Play with aluminum foil is a great way to learn about our sense of touch, texture and spatial reasoning as kids can ball the foil up into shapes, cover items and make imprints of them, all while exploring textures.   Here are some great ideas of ways you can use aluminum foil to teach your kids and instructions on how to paint textures idea.
…

Activities to learn with foil:
Build vocabulary with texture terms: crinkle, wrinkle, smash, smooth, pointy, etc.
Work on gross motor skills as you throw an aluminum foil ball at each …

Paint is our favorite medium.  It is the good ole’ standby at our house.  As we are learning about birds this week, we decided to paint with feathers.
…
Materials Needed:

Paint, we used our shaving cream paint recipe
Feathers
Glue
Paper

Originally we were going to use the feathers as one would use a paintbrush.  Silly me thought my two-year old was up for the fine motor skill challenge.  Once my little fella discovered th joy of getting his fingers wet in the paint their was no stopping them and my older child joined in.  …

Chalkboard paint is great.  You can use it to transform any blank surface into a creative masterpiece (or at least a place for notes).  Kristen had a terrific idea!  She painted the side of her refrigerator with chalkboard paint to use it as a note or list making area.  She inspired me and we painted the side of our refrigerator and have made it into a little art niche.
She gives instructions for the project here.  But basically, we needed to clean the surface and apply several coats of the paint.  …