Family Handprint/Thumbrint Fall Trees

I loved this family project!

Easy

Paint your forearm and hand brown then press onto the paper. Use fall colors and make leaves with your thumbprint. If you have a toddler, they'll love their hand painted...or love painting yours!

When making the leaves, you can hold their thumb for a little more control and less smearing. We usually don't do such product centered projects but a few things like this are such great family treasures! You see my tree on the left? I tried to make it look like it had a branch but instead it just looks like I have a 2nd thumb growing out of my arm. You'd think i'd know by now NOT to attempt to be artistic, buuut oh well. Daddy made one too, which I just loved.

 

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Sidewalk Paint

 

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Rainbow Milk Jug

I made this Rainbow Milk Jug for play and fine motor practice. I cut a hole in the side of the jug then painted it with acrylic paint...rainbow of course! After it the paint dried, I modge podged the whole thing to seal the paint and prevent it from chipping.  

I had these little square foam cubes and I put them inside the jug. L grabbed them out of the big hole and dropped them through the smaller opening at the top. He thought this was lots of fun and he was getting some color recognition and great fine motor practice as well! 

 

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Printing with TP Rolls

I started hoarding craft material and supplies long before Lawson even cared about picking up a crayon! I have more Toilet Paper Rolls than I know what to do with and finally I was like I NEED TO START USING THESE because DUH, thats why i'm saving them in the first place!

I found this idea in a MaryAnn Kohl Book. If you don't know who this is..YOU NEED TO! She has several books about doing art with kids. I have like 5 of her books and theres enough ideas to last through L's entire childhood!

Imprinting with TP Rolls

what you need

TP Rolls/ Paper Towel Rolls

extra cardboard

other small gluable objects (optional)

Strong Glue (hot glue gun works best)

 Paint

what you do

1. cut out shapes from the extra cardboard and glue them around your toilet paper rolls.

2. You can also use other materials (beads, leaves, aluminum foil, feathers, etc) to make all sorts of different imprints!

-I used beans and noodles for my other rolls.

3. Let your child paint the rolls OR roll them in paint

-I let him do it both ways

When he started rolling them onto paper you could make out the different shapes but not after he rolled so much and did some finger painting as well...it all became just a lot of paint lol. Soon the paper and the rolls were covered but he thought that was fun too so I gave him all 3 rolls to play with.

Then I let him paint the paper towel rolls. He decided to paint each bean one by one!

Then he rolled it on the paper. Love that little purple spot on his nose :)

L really liked this (probably because it was quite messy!) and the toilet paper rolls became works of art themselves!

I still have tons of rolls left, so when the weather cools down it'll be a nice excuse for a nature hunt and we'll be doing this again but using more natural textures to put on the rolls. I'd love to wrap some leaves, branches, rocks, pine needles, etc. around the rolls and then let L paint!

You may have noticed and wondered WHY ON EARTH IS HE IN A WHITE SHIRT?!

I MUST BE DELUSIONAL AND ADDICTED TO SPRAY AND WASH!

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Paint Filled Eggs

I constantly save egg shells (washing and drying them out)  for various projects. I started out saving egg shells just as a sensory activity for L. He loved to crumble them and also to hear the sound they made when crunched. This is my latest eggshell activity. This idea stemmed from an incident when I was cooking breakfast and had a few eggs laid out on the counter ready to fry. L grabbed it off the counter and dropped it and it broke. Welll...he immediately wanted another one to do the same thing!
haha of course he did...all kids want to throw eggs, they just NEVER GET TO!

So, when I saw Lawson drop that egg with delight, I knew I could come up with something comparable to the egg throwing experience without the smelly mess (I don't mind the egg shell mess). And so....

PAINT FILLED EGGS

were born!

What you'll need:

*Egg shells with a small opening at the top (washed and dried)

*Egg shell halves

*Washable paint or sidewalk paint ( I recommend sidewalk paint-very easy to wash off and is sooo much brighter than the other paints)

*Strong glue (hot glue gun is best)

What you do:

Take your empty egg shells (washed and dried) and make holes at the top (I use a pen to gently break the shells). Then fill the eggs with your paint.

After the eggs are full, you'll want to put the tops on using your egg shell halves and glue.  Glue around the hole of the paint filled eggs and then gently press an egg shell half on top of it:

 It holds in place very nicely! Now they are ready to be splattered!

Now go play!
He LOVED throwing those eggs and watching them splat!

His canvas was the driveway but I set a piece of paper out too.

The End

This was super fun and I only wish I would have made lots more!

I'll be saving more eggs for next time!

**UPDATE**

 Two years later we have tried this activity again, but with powdered paint! Click the photo below to see!

 

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