Fingerpaint A Picture For Mothers Day

I came across this wonderful easy recipe for fingerpaint in a book our elementary school put together. Man was it fun! I love finger painting and it was even fun for my 15 month old daughter.

We made these fun pictures for our grandmas for Mothers day. I love giving homemade gifts to them just as much as they love receiving them. What beats a fingerpaint?

2 cups water
1/4 cup cornstarch
food coloring

Bring water to a boil. Add small amount of water to cornstarch and blend together to make a paste. Gradually add paste to boiled water, stirring well. Bring to a boil. Remove from heat. Add food coloring of your choice. Cool; mixture will thicken as it cools. Makes 2 cups.

Art and Nature

This morning was beautiful. I took the kids to the park and while they were playing I had this idea come to me. So I had them help me gather up a variety of things: pine cones, sticks, leaves, and dandelions. Then we came home and we painted. Instead of paintbrushes we used our little collections as brushes.

Our Supplies

First we did leaf tracings. Tyson had a little bit of a harder time than Nathan, but Nathan is almost 5 and Tyson is 3. He just couldn't push the crayon down hard enough. So I helped him and they turned out great. They loved this and we did several of them for each of them.

And then we painted. They used the leaves like quills and their favorite thing to paint with was the dandelions.

Our Gallery

Piper didn't really want to paint, she just wanted to eat it. Good thing it's non-toxic.

We talked about the different textures each item made and the kids had a blast. It was also really easy to clean up. I just threw away all of the supplies and washed the table down. FUN STUFF!!

Greatest Easel

BayLee was given this Easel from Grandma and Grandpa Boggess for her fifth birthday. Let me tell you, this is the greatest easel EVER!!! It comes with a great big roll of paper that you can drape over the top, it has a whiteboard, a chalkboard and it opens creativity levels up. We have painted, colored, done math, spelling. She loves to play "school" with her dolls with it. My parents got it at IKEA (BEST store ever) and the best part about it is it folds up really well and makes storing it way easy. Check it out at www.ikea.com. What would we do without art projects????