easter art

I am very behind on this blog and I know there were some things I missed over the past few months.  Truth is, I'm happy to get this post up before Easter is actually over.  M and I have done a few little projects to get in the Easter spirit, which seemed to be a little overshadowed getting ready for G's baptism.

I love this bunny project because M loved it so much.  Of everything we've ever done, he was so proud of this bunny and asked me to take his picture with it when we were done.  The bunny head is a paper plate, covered in cotton balls.  M loved it because he spread the glue and stuck the cotton on with no help.  The ears are footprints and his bow tie is handprints.  Ideally we would have used googly eyes but drawn on did the trick this year -

Our second bunny is made out of a baby food jar, which we currently have a surplus of (any good baby food jar craft ideas?).  M filled it with cotton and we hot glued on some ears made of felt and pipe cleaners.  M has perched this guy up on our entertainment center so he can watch him.  

All M needs now are some colored eggs and he'll be ready for the real bunny...

macaroni valentines

It's Valentine time again. Even though M has yet to start school, we still make Valentines to give to our family. Last year we did a handprint heart. This year we decided to do some macaroni art. 

Before M got involved I painted some macaroni white, pink, and red. I did this by putting them in a Ziplock bag with the paint and shaking them around. Much quicker than painting each one. I let them dry on wax paper. 

I cut hearts out of card stock then cut holes in half of them to serve as picture frames. The ones without holes became the backs. 

We colored with red and pink crayons then added the macaroni with glue (M's current favorite art activity is gluing). They came out cute and we were able to write on the back sides. 

october art

Last week I realized that last October our kitchen was full of fun fall art and this October all we had hanging up was a half-finished water colored coloring book page of Ernie trick-or-treating.  I suppose I could blame that on our countdown to baby G and the fact that baby prep has come before toddler art but that excuse makes me sad so over the long weekend we did a few projects to make our house a little more seasonal looking.

We did my most favorite Halloween project last year but this year's were cute too.  A few months ago we needed cotton balls for one of our many dog ailments of the year.  I don't think M had ever really seen them and he took to playing with them and calling them "bunnies."  I knew he'd like this project because it included cotton balls and ghosts, a new favorite since a neighbor hung a big ghost in the tree outside their house.  We used about 10 cotton balls (spread apart) and black construction paper cut into a ghost shape.  

I spread glue over the ghost first but if M were older I would have had him handle the glue.  He had to take the cotton and stick it on.  Being the efficient two-year old he is, he took all the cotton at once and dumped it on the ghost so we then had to work on spreading out the pieces.  

We also did a paper plate pumpkin that M enjoyed painting.  He loved using the big foam brush.  We've been playing with pumpkin faces lately so once he finished painting and the paint was still wet I let him stick on the face pieces by himself and then I glued them as he had left them.  He did a pretty good job and I love the crooked-ness of it.  

We also started a special project over the weekend that I've been looking forward to.  We can't finish without baby G so this is a "to be continued" part of the post for a few weeks from now.  About a month ago I bought two small canvases especially for this project.  While we had the paint and smocks out for our pumpkin I figured we should get M's piece done because I clearly remember how hard it is to get a newborn handprint on anything.  

On each canvas will be an M handprint and a G handprint.  One will hang in his room and one will hang in her room.  To be continued....

egg carton caterpillar

This is an oldie but a goodie so I'll keep it brief....

Take an old egg carton and cut it in half.  Turn it upside down and paint/decorate it.  We used our favorite Crayola paint:

Our My favorite part of painting these days is that we use one color at a time and M has to tell me the color word for the new color he wants to use.  His favorite colors are blue and red so even though he can say all the colors, he typically will tell me that everything is either blue or red - except when we're painting and he has a real reason to tell me the right color!

Anyway, let the caterpillar dry then add eyes and a pipe cleaner antenna :

scribble art canvases

Quite a while ago I pinned this page on Pinterest: http://squashblossombabies.com/2012/01/19/toddler-scribble-art/

After trying one of these scribble art canvases I have to say I love the idea.  I will definitely make a few more to hang along with this one that I finished today.

I did a less complicated version of the instructions on the Squash Blossom Babies link so I'll explain my process.  I took a few scribble drawings (we have plenty these days):

I cut out shapes.  I used scissors not a knife like the original poster.  I had a spare black canvas from another Pinterest project that went bad.  I didn't paint the canvas.  I glued the shapes on.  I haven't coated it with anything yet.  I think I might hang it and use it as my tester to see how it holds up.  I don't want it to end up being sticky.  I'll update if I end up coating it or changing anything the second time around.  I love this idea and I think it will look really cute hanging up.  As the original poster commented, it's a great way to save some of the scribble drawings.  

Animal sounds

This is my first post from my iPhone. We'll see how it goes...

After we visited Davis Farmland M went through a cow phase. He moo'ed for a week and would wave to the cow on our milk delivery box in the driveway. This week he moved on from cows to sheep. He bahs instead of moos and likes finding sheep in his animal books. There are signs the sheep phase is almost ready to be replaced with a duck phase so this morning we made the most of sheep while we still like them.
This morning we made a sheep. I cut pieces out of black and white construction paper. The body looked like the cutout of a puffy white cloud. I covered it with a glue stick and showed M how to stick on cotton balls.

We had to stop to play with the cotton balls (he had never seen them before).  He did well sticking them on.  With the exception of the initial cotton ball that I put on, he put them all on.  Then I added the legs and head.  We added some googly eyes that we have been saving for a project we're going to try in a few weeks when we get home from our beach vacation.  He's not the fuzziest sheep but we like him.  

We hung him up and M likes pointing to him and bahing.  Maybe we've prolonged the sheep phase for a few days.