More Halloween Tot Play: Get Sticky, Slippery and Sparkly!

Halloween is almost here! Here are two more of our Spooky Play activities, plus a couple of Halloween crafts. 

Giant Sticky Web

I made this web out of masking tape and washi tape (after I ran out of masking tape). I put the tape sticky-side-out so that we could throw little "flies" at it and hopefully catch some. The "flies" were little crumpled up pieces of black construction paper and catalog pages from some kids clothing catalog that came in the mail. Calvin helped tear and crumple the paper "flies." It was actually pretty hard to get them on there by throwing! Maybe if I had stickier tape... or better aim!! Calvin preferred to stand next to it and stick the paper on. You can see all his "flies" in the bottom left corner!

Sticky Wall with Halloween Items

A sticky contact paper wall is fun anytime! This is one of the ways I attempted to keep Calvin busy while he was home from school with a cough. You just tape big sheets of contact paper sticky-side-out on a wall or door. I had Calvin help hold the paper up while I taped it onto the closet doors with painter's tape.

I made it Halloween-y with bats leftover from our Halloween cards (see the next activity), big googly eyes, big sparkly sequins, plastic spiders, and orange triangles cut from scrap paper. Later, we also made a spider web on the sticky wall using pieces of white string. 

Batty Halloween Cards

Spoiler alert to Calvin and Henry's grandparents and great-grands! As I'm writing, these cards are en route to you! 

I wish I could give credit to the mom-blogger I first saw this from, but once again I can't remember which one it was!! To whoever it was: Thanks for the great idea!!

I drew bats on some cardstock and cut them out, then taped them to black cards (also cut from cardstock) using painter's tape. Then I had the boys help me paint some white, yellow, and orange tempera paint over the bats, making sure to get beyond the edges of the bat shapes. After the paint dried, we added some glitter glue on top.

When they were completely dry, I peeled the bats off. The glitter glue did make this difficult. It would have been easier with just the paint. 

I added a piece of orange cardstock to the back of each card so that I could write a greeting. And now they're off in the mail! 

Pumpkin Painting

I thought I could contain this paint mess by spreading out some butcher paper on the floor. Silly me. 

Part of my Contain the Mess plan was to have Henry roll his pumpkin around in paint inside a shoebox rather than have him try a brush or just set him loose with plates of paint... As you can see he ended up loose with the plates of paint anyway!! 

The box thing worked at first. I drizzled a few colors of paint over his pumpkin in the box and let him roll it around. The problem started when I tried to take pictures... at which point Henry rolled the pumpkin out of the box and across the floor... and then chased it across the floor with his paint-covered hands... and found the other plates of paint Calvin was using.

Yeah, I'm pretty sure he ate some paint. 

Meanwhile, Calvin was being relatively civilized with his pumpkin painting. I had set out a few plates with different colored paints and a brush for each color. He did a little body painting, as he likes to do :) and he and I painted our pumpkins with the brushes. 

Glitter Pumpkins

I was both excited and afraid to do glitter pumpkins with Calvin. I decided I definitely wasn't brave enough to get Henry involved with glitter, so I gave him a little sheet of contact paper to play with instead.

I let Calvin choose 4 colors of glitter from a set of little tubes of fine glitter that I have from Michaels. He picked the green one, and three shades of purple! I was like, "Don't you want blue...? Or pink...? Something besides more purple?" And he was like, No. All the purples. 

So I poured a little of each color glitter into separate cups and I had a spoon for each one, though we didn't really need all the spoons. I put the pumpkins on plates to catch the glitter, and I taped brown paper over the table to catch whatever the plates didn't catch (glitter is sneaky). 

I painted each pumpkin with glue and we used the spoons to scoop and pour the glitter over the pumpkins. 

Here's where I have to admit that I became kind of a control freak about the project and I pretty much would not let Calvin spoon the glitter by himself. He could have done it, but it would have been more messy. And I probably should have let him go for it and dealt with the mess later. That is usually my M.O. But this time, my inner control freak got the best of me and we did most of the glitter scooping-and-pouring "hand over hand" style, meaning that he was holding the spoon and I was holding his hand and steering him. 

The finished glitter pumpkins are so pretty and sparkly! I feel a little guilty every time I look at them though! Maybe in the future I will be able to relax a bit more and let him have at it with the glitter. Also, I think glitter might be a good outdoor craft project next time. 

Anybody have tips for letting your toddlers use glitter without having a nervous breakdown?? Or tips for cleaning up glitter??

Did your family decorate or carve pumpkins this year? We haven't carved our big ones yet. Last year we carved them too soon and they rotted before Halloween! But I am enjoying our little painted and glitter pumpkins on the mantel. 

Happy Haunting ;)

TBT: Halloween Countdown 2014

Baby Harry Potter and Hedwig are here to tell you... It's almost Halloween! Again!

And though it's not quite a week 'til Halloween yet, it is Thursday so for your #TBT from me, here are last year's Halloween Countdown posts! In case you're interested in some inspiration for Halloween-themed play :)

Click on the pics! Each one will take you to the post for that activity. 

If you do happen to do any of these crafts or activities and share them, tag me on Instagram @dianapancakes, because I'd love to see it! And if you have your own favorite Halloween activities, do share! 

Tot Play Tuesday: 3 Fall Art Ideas

The first official day of fall is tomorrow and while I am still basking in Indian Summer here in California, I know lots of my friends are already starting to enjoy cooler weather, leggings and scarves, pumpkin spice lattes, and soon, gorgeous fall foliage.

So here are three art ideas from last year's fall blog posts to get you and your little ones in the spirit of the season (even if it is Indian Summer where you are too!). 

These are three art projects that I did with Calvin and Henry last year, and I'm thinking I'm going to bring them back and do them again this fall. It will be neat to compare their art from last year with this year. All three of these projects are pretty easy if you've got a few art supplies on hand. 

Fall Fingerpaint Trees

All you need for this gorgeous artwork are some paints, paper, and any kind of marker or pen. I used a brown sharpie. The paints I used were a mix of fingerpaints and tempera paint. You could do the same thing with watercolors, draw the tree trunk and let them paint away! I bet watercolors would be so pretty. If you're not up for freehanding a tree trunk, print one out! 

Pumpkin & Apple Stamping

I did this project with the boys after Halloween to use up the little bitty pumpkins we had. And then we did it again with apples. What I love about this art project is that you can throw it together as a last minute idea with whatever you have on hand. Any kind of paint or even ink stamp pads would work for this, and just about any kind of fruit or veggie. 

Torn Paper Collage

I've always enjoyed making collage art. In high school and college I used to make lots of magazine collages. When working with little kids, I like torn paper collage because then they don't have to worry about being skilled with scissors. For Calvin, I did what I would have done for my first graders: I cut the paper into strips first so that he could (in theory) tear small pieces off. (If you read the post, you'll see that the project did not go over as well as I'd dreamed it would!). For collage art, of course, you don't need to draw anything, you could just go for it with the paper or you can start with a shape or the start of a picture like my tree trunk and turkey head.



Happy Fall Y'all!!

Snowflake Pinstrosity

"Pinstrosity" = Pinterest monstrosity... Usually a handmade item that was inspired by something that looked awesome on Pinterest, but turns out much less than awesome in real life.

Like this snowflake artwork.

#nailedit

I'm not blaming the kids here. I am responsible for those poor torn and tattered snowflakes.

It's called "tape-resist painting." I got the idea from a "pin" I saw from the website Play, Create, Explore. And not only did I think "Hey, I can totally do that with Calvin," I actually thought "Hey, I can totally do that even more awesom-er!" 

Mmm hmmm. 

My brilliant plan for a more awesom-er tape-resist snowflake was to use my favorite skinny washi tape to make beautiful and delicate snowflakes. Washi tape, in my experience, doesn't have very strong adhesive and I've always appreciated that it's pretty easy to peel off. So I thought it would be great for tape-resist painting. 

I only had one piece of nice, shiny fingerpaint paper left so I made Calvin a beautiful and delicate snowflake with my skinny washi tape on our last piece of shiny fingerpaint paper, and then I made Henry a slightly less beautiful snowflake on printer paper. I wasn't optimistic about peeling the washi tape off of the printer paper. I expected it to be problematic, but I also knew that Henry was probably going to do his share of destroying the paper in his artistic process so I wasn't too worried about it. And I was completely certain that my favorite skinny washi tape would peel off beautifully from Calvin's shiny fingerpaint paper. 

Mmm hmmm. 

After Calvin finished with his big snowflake, he wanted to do more, so I made him another snowflake picture on printer paper. 

So at that point we had 3 snowflake pictures drying. I decided to start peeling the tape off while the paint was still wet because I thought that the longer the tape stayed on the paper the harder it would be to peel off. I didn't think the wet paint would be a problem. 

I started with Henry's, which (as predicted) he had crushed and crunched with his little hands and teeth - yes, teeth. That's just how Henry does art, ok? Next time we'll do yogurt again, or something else that's more edible than fingerpaint ;) Anyway, as I tried to peel the tape off of the printer paper, chunks of the paper were peeling off with the tape (as predicted). Kind of a bummer, and it looked like a pretty bad mess, but I was still looking forward to doing Calvin's because I was still sure that it was going to work out beautifully thanks to my favorite washi tape and the shiny paper.

Henry's masterpiece

As I started peeling the tape off of his big snowflake picture, Calvin came over to watch me. And as chunks of that shiny, fancy fingerprint paper started peeling off along with the washi tape and his beautiful blue, sparkly paint... Calvin saw exactly what was happening and in his precious tiny voice he exclaimed, "Oh no!" 

I felt like a monster. 

I was destroying his snowflake picture. And I didn't stop, either. I went for it and peeled all the tape off and, well, you can see the result.

I mean, you can still tell it's a snowflake...

Only then did I get on the interweb to look for advice on tape-resist art. And only then did I read that it's better to wait for the paint to dry before peeling off the tape. Um, hee hee. Oops. 

So, ok. There was still one more picture that I hadn't yet destroyed at that point, so I left it to dry. Meanwhile, Calvin and I had a conversation about how Mama was sorry she messed up his picture and how sometimes we try things and they don't work out and we can try again. To which Calvin responded with an enthusiastic "Uh-huh!" (meaning yes, let's try again). 

So I racked my brain for another brilliant idea. I didn't have any more fingerpaint paper and I just didn't trust that darn printer paper to work well with the tape. I knew canvas or wood would work, but I didn't have those lying around to use for a little Christmas Countdown art project. I do have a lot of scrapbook paper, though, especially cardstock. And I figured, cardstock is a little hardier than regular paper, and the kind I have is a little bit glossy, so I thought maybe it would do the trick if I followed the advice to let the paint dry. 

I made another beautiful and delicate snowflake for Calvin, this time on a big sheet of white cardstock. Calvin did his thing with the paint and the glitter. (He loved getting to use glitter!) And this time, I hung it up to dry and left it alone until the next day. 

So the following morning, I peeled the tape off of the last printer paper picture, and the one on the cardstock. 

printer paper

cardstock

Ta-da! Not perfect, but much better, I think. Calvin didn't say "Oh no!" this time :) And now I know, if I ever decide to do tape-resist paintint again... Wait until the paint is dry to peel off the tape, and it's probably best to stick with painter's tape or masking tape. 

Not my first "Pinstrosity" and won't be my last, I'm sure! Poor Calvin! The things he has to put up with from me trying to be all crafty and artsy! #smh

Calvin vs. Collage

Did a quick art project with Calvin yesterday. I thought of another way to make a pretty fall tree with orange, yellow, and red leaves... torn paper collage! Torn paper collage is a technique where you use torn bits of different papers to create or fill in shapes. My idea was to use the torn paper to fill in the leaves of a fall tree and the feathers of a turkey.

I thought this was a brilliant idea. As it turned out, Calvin felt otherwise. But I figured it was worth sharing anyway. I mean, I like torn paper collage. Surely some other kid out there would be into this even if mine wasn't!

For a simple torn paper collage, you really just need paper and glue. If you want to get fancy, you can use fancy paper or even paint the paper first, which is a whole other art project. You could also embellish your picture with glitter or stickers or whatever else you can glue down. We kept it really simple.

Just like I had done for our fall fingerpaint trees, I drew a tree trunk and branches ahead of time. I also drew a turkey head on another sheet. I cut our construction paper into strips so that we could tear off little pieces easily - or at least, I thought it would be easy. Turns out Calvin can't tear pieces off of a strip of paper just yet. I gave him a strip and showed him how I was ripping little pieces off. He proceeded to squeeze it and pull it until it was pretty well mangled but still in one piece. 

Hmm...

In an attempt to salvage this project I tore little notches all along another strip and with some teamwork, he was able to rip pieces off. I held the big strip, and he would pinch the end and tear it. He got the hang of pinching the paper and twisting his hand while pulling. He just couldn't do that while also steadying the paper with his other hand. That's ok. We can work on part of a skill at a time. I even made sure to have him switch hands halfway through so he got practice with his right and left. 

We did one strip together like this and I tore the other two strips for him. Once our paper was in little torn pieces, I set out a small dish of glue and showed Calvin how to touch a piece of paper to the glue, then stick it to the picture.

He had no problem gluing on the pieces of paper. But I feel compelled to confess that I glued at least half of those feathers and leaves on myself because truth be told, Calvin was much more entertained by running around in circles than he was by this collage project!

When I found myself begging him to come glue a feather on the turkey I was like, ya know what? If he's not into it, let's move on! Honestly, I think I lost him when ripping the paper turned out to be hard for him. Ripping paper is a really good task for little hands. It takes some coordination and it works those little hand muscles which is important for other fine motor tasks and especially for writing. So, Calvin, this is not the last you'll see of torn paper collage! We shall meet again! 

Ever started a project that your kids weren't into? This is not the first time it's happened to me - nor will it be the last I'm sure! 

Fall Fingerpaint Trees

I've got another fall art project to share - and Henry got to do this one too! I've been doing art projects almost exclusively with Calvin, but I realize that Henry is at point in his development where not only is he able to start participating in the things his big brother does (with some modifications), but it's probably really good for his development, too.

Just yesterday Calvin and I were noticing the pretty fall colors on the trees and talking about how the leaves on some of the trees are orange or yellow or red. Calvin likes how the brown fallen leaves crunch under his sneakers. Who doesn't?! So today I talked with him about making a tree like the ones we saw yesterday and get this guys - when I asked him to name the colors of the paint... HE GOT THEM ALL RIGHT!! He correctly named the paint colors red, orange, and yellow. Maybe he is not color blind after all ;)

We used tempera paint and fingerpaint, because that's what I had on hand in the colors I wanted to use. I cut little paper cups into shallow bowls for the paint. I used a brown sharpie to draw the trees ahead of time (P.S. If SAHM's had prep-time it would be so much easier to do stuff like this. Amiright?). If you're not into drawing trees, you could also print one from the interweb. Or with older kids, they could draw the trees themselves.

Sorry about the blurry pics! It's hard to catch the kiddos in action. Especially Henry because I was also trying to keep him from destroying his tree painting!

This was Henry's first fingerpaint encounter. And good thing it is non-toxic, because his little paint-covered fingers went straight into his mouth! So for my little paint-eater I quickly switched to yogurt and jelly "painting" instead.

Tastes much better than fingerpaint!

Calvin had a blast. And when his tree was finished (according to him), he asked for more trees to paint.

Henry looks a little sad here. Maybe he thinks his yogurt and jelly isn't as much fun as real paint.

The trees turned out so beautifully. While they were painting, Calvin said he wanted to go see trees again and we talked about our hiking trip a couple of weeks ago. I asked if he would like to go hiking this weekend with Daddy and he said yes, and that he would like to invite his friends to come hiking too. Maybe we'll pick a hike with some nice fall colors :)