Solar System

Talia has had an interest in the Solar System for a while now, so my scientist husband bought some foam balls and paint at the dollar store in preparation to make a model with her.

A couple of weeks ago, we all went to the library to pick up a couple of books about the planets. Then we came home & Ken coached the girls through painting the balls to look like the planets. They did a great job!


We figured out that it was easiest to paint the balls if we stuck them with a skewer (then their hands wouldn't get too covered in paint). Then we stuck the skewers in an egg carton to dry.


...and our solar system is awesome... but it remains in the egg carton ;) ...on my kitchen counter.

I'm still trying to figure out what to do with it. We thought of putting it in a box, painted black (with holes poked in it for stars- think fun with a flashlight ;), but that would take up a lot of space (like the egg carton is) and we want to keep it for a while. So, I thought of hanging them in the playroom, from fishing line... but I'm stuck at how to attach the fishing line to them.

Ideas?...

Ghost Hands

We did this handprint ghost idea that I saw online somewhere, but I did it from memory (it didn't look too complicated)... and it wasn't, but I totally forgot about the mouth- which would have made them look a lot more ghost-ish. ;)

But really, it was all about letting them squish their hands in paint and use them as stamps, right? They had fun adding the eyes later, and I think it's cute seeing the 2 little hand prints- one a little littler than the other. :)

Blossoming Cherry Tree

I love the Frugal Family Fun Blog. We got the idea for making a blossoming cherry tree with tissue paper from it.

I remember doing something like this in my childhood :) We used a pencil end & cut squares of tissue paper which we wrapped around the end of a pencil, then dipped in glue & stuck to the paper. On Frugal Family Fun, they just scrunched up tissue paper (probably would've been less frustrating for Talia to do it that way).



We also painted our scene whereas on FFB they used paper- I was going to use paper, but Talia wanted to paint, so we went with it.

We went to the window to take a look at the trees and see how there's only a bit of green grass and a lot of blue sky behind most of the trees, and then we painted our picture like that.


It was fun! :)

Sidewalk Paint

I love the idea of sidewalk paint! My friend Cheryl posted about making some & when I saw how easy it was to make, I knew we had to do it this summer!

So, we set out to do it & look how fun it looks!



Here's How to Do It:

1. mix equal parts cornstarch & water (I think we did a half of a cup of each and it was just enough for us to play with- when we ran out of it, we were ready to be done). As you can see from the pictures above, Katrina had fun mixing- it's nice that she's old enough to take part now!

2. add food colouring! (we love this part- so fun to mix!) Talia did the colour mixing. We only added one or two drops to each colour, and we made 4 different colours. Most of our paint dried to be almost white, so I'd suggest using a bit more food colouring- just be careful not to go overboard or you'll have some colourful mess ;)

3. Get some brushes, go outside, & be artistic! :)
Talia & Katrina started picking things from the lawn & using them as paint brushes- so creative! ;) You'll also notice that Katrina saw the paint brush & immediately thought nail polish & went to work decorating her toes ;)

This was such a fun activity! Definitely do it!

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Play with Paint

Talia is in love with paint. Seriously, ask the girl what she would like to do at any given time and 93% of the time, the answer will be paint.



The other day, we got out our coloured roll of paper & some paint and went nuts. I added a few things (clouds, rainbow, fence, tree) and we talked about how we could make the painting look like something. It was a lot of fun!

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Homemade Happy Birthday Banner

For Ken's birthday this year, Talia & I got out one of her rolls of coloured paper (purple was her choice- she was sure he would like it ;) and a bunch of random craft supplies and went to work creating this Happy Birthday Banner for him.


We surprised him on his birthday by waking up before him, putting the banner up, blowing up balloons, and making him breakfast in bed. Talia also presented him with a present chosen by her (she knew for days that she wanted to give him a paddleball :)

It was so nice for her to feel included in celebrating his birthday, and how much more fun is it to see a banner on your birthday that was made especially for you, than a store bought one?

Painting Pinecones

Again, Talia loves anything messy and she loves painting. I grabbed a few of the cinnamon-scented pinecones leftover from Chrstimas so she could make some snowy pinecones. I think it would be a great idea to go on a nature walk & find your own pinecones (like Emily at Learning Vicariously did), but we haven't done that, so this was the next best thing.


Talia noticed that when we turned her finished snowy pinecone on its end, it looked like a tree. I suggested that we might paint some green next time, and make pinecone trees. I have lots of leftover pinecones, so that'll be our next painting project :)

Painting with String

Another fun way to play with paint:



We were on a white paint kick, but I've seen this done with lots of different colours which makes a fun rainbow effect. :)

Talia started out by making an "H" and then she turned it into a ladder :)

Painting with Pom Poms

We experimented today with different ways to paint.

Talia loves painting, and doing messy things, so anything with paint is usually a hit ;)

Here's painting with pom poms:


We used blue paper and white paint & made a snowstorm :)

Then we used green paper & we'll cut it out in the shape of an evergreen tree & it will be a snowy tree :)

Christmas Trees

Talia made a couple of Christmas trees today:
I cut out a Christmas Tree shape from a cereal box-type of cardboard, and Talia
- painted it green
- painted the stump pink/red
- realized mixing red with green made brown, and experimented - decorated the tree with stickers and sequins
- made it "rain" sequins
- spent FOREVER cleaning up the sequins
I also made a little green paper cone out of construction paper for her (I got the idea from Ikat, through The Crafty Crow, where you can find a bunch of cute advent ideas here) and let her decorate it
- she loved using pom poms because she saw them days ago & has been waiting for her chance to use them! Here's what Katrina got to do while Talia was painting (I tried letting her at the finger paint at first, but it went in her mouth so fast, I quickly changed the plan & let her at some babyfood instead! :)
I have a feeling that cardboard tree will continue to get more and more decorated as the days go on. I'm also planning to make a larger version of it with her as we get closer to Christmas.

Apple Pumpkin Stamps

I have seen this activity before but I can't remember where.

You just cut an apple in half, dip it in paint (or paint it with a paintbrush) and then use it as a stamp. We used them to make pumpkins.

We did the stamping in the evening, and since they used a lot of paint,we let them dry overnight before adding googly eyes & paper jack-o-lantern faces. (I cut out the pieces & Talia arranged them).

Magic Paint Pictures

I found this idea on Learning Vicariously. It's great for Hallowe'en, but could be used for anything! I like the idea of having Talia draw some pictures or designs herself & then painting to see what she did. I think we will do that another day, but this time she was ready to stop by the time we finished the page of Hallowe'en pictures I had drawn ahead of time for her.

How To Do This:

- draw pictures on a white paper with white crayon
- use watercolour paints to paint over & reveal the pictures!

Handprint Turkey

We have our Canadian Thanksgiving coming up this weekend, so today we talked about turkeys, sang a turkey song, and made a handprint turkey.

Talia LOVED making the turkey (she loves working with paint & getting messy, so she was practically bouncing at the idea of paint :)

She chose the paint colours she wanted to use, I smeared the paint onto her hand generously, with a paper towel. She stamped a couple of turkeys, and then did a freestyle painting while we waited for the turkeys to dry a bit.

After washing her hands, I showed her where the turkey needed legs, eyes, etc. and she added them on. She loved the googly eyes, and added some large ones onto the paper insects that she had made so far throughout the week.

Note: Please excuse my photos if they are dark or weird- my laptop is in the shop, so I don't have my regular photo imaging software. I look forward to its return!