Afternoon of Art

You will need: Items to paint, paints, small brush, old plastic table cloth, old t-shirt to protect clothing, paper cup and paper plate.

Supplies from Michaels – Wooden Snake paint kit – $2.00, Bobble Head characters – $1.49

The snake paint kit comes with a small paint brush and three colors of paint. I checked lately and couldn’t find the wooden snakes but there are alligator and lizard kits to paint. You might want to purchase some additional colors, two oz. bottles of craft paint are $.59 to $1.99. I also saw a set of 16 small acrylic paint pots for $3.29.

Craft paint cleans up with water. I use an old plastic table cloth under the kid’s projects. Sometimes I use leftover table cloths from their birthday parties. We have some old t-shirts the kids put on over their shirts to keep clean from the paint.

We used a small plastic storage container for water to clean the brush between colors, you could use a paper cup or old plastic cup for this. We used a paper plate for our paint pallets. The paints in the paint kit are in small plastic containers to dip into, but for additional colors – squirt a small amount of paint onto the paper plate.

The kids had a lot fun. They were excited about both projects and painted on both but didn’t finish either in our two hours that we were together.

When I do this again I will just show them one project at a time. Molly, 8, painted on a kitty bobble head, and painted her snakes head green. Patrick, 6, painted on his snake, and painted the bottom of a kitty bobble head. Seamus, 3, painted on a turtle bobble head, and on his snake.

They worked for awhile and decided it was time for a break. So we blew bubbles for awhile, then we ate popsicles. Popsicles cost about $3.50 for a box of Super Hero Popsicles at Fred Meyers. After our break we went back to painting.

I played relaxing music while we painted and the kids told me about things they were up to. It was a good time to talk about how things are going for them and what they were excited about.

I painted a bobble head horse. The amount of time needed and their ability to paint get better as they get older. Molly, 8, was close to finishing her kitty. The first time I painted with Seamus, who is 3, he had a wonderful time swirling all the colors I put on his paper plate into a pool of mixed brown paint. He didn’t finish his project but he had a good time seeing how the colors mix and change. It didn’t matter his project got finished later – he had fun and learned along the way. But now I only put out one color at a time for him…

The most important thing is to have fun together, learn a little, and help them to finish their projects. I highly recommend having a paint day with your kids, or GRANDkids as that may be.

I’m sure I don’t know all of the fun things to do or places to take kids in our area – if you have a suggestion and we use it in an article you will receive a prize. Logon to our website and fill in the suggestion box.
Past articles are listed there as well. www.gottabefun.com/bugler.htm