Painting Projects

As I was saying with another mom of a toddler this morning, there isn't too much you can do with a 2 year old as far as crafts are concerned.  Mostly you can glue things together or you can paint things.  Here is a collection of painting ideas.

Types of paint:

• Watercolor
• Tempera paints
• You can also add things to the paint like glitter, salt, dry rice or sand to make the paint look and feel different.  
• Home made paint
• Shaving cream paint

Finger paint paper, washable tempera paint with a little glitter mixed in, heart and star foam stamper

A very typical Natalie painting.  Thick white watercolor paper, tempera paint and some glitter glue, a variety of brushes and foam stampers. 

How you paint:

• fingers
• all types of brushes - big, small, tiny, stiff, soft, foam, rollers
• hand prints (either dunked in paint or painted on hands with a brush)
• sponges
• shape stampers
• puffy paint and glitter glue in squeeze bottles
• paper towel rolls as stampers
• droppers
• kitchen utensils to dip and roll in paint
• nature - pine needles, leaves, grass, sticks
• tracks - car wheels, animal figures, action figures
• spray and squirt bottles
• blow through straws
• feet
• stencils

What you paint on:

• Paper - finger paint paper, thick paper, colored paper (esp light colors on dark paper), different size paper
• paper towels and coffee filters with water colors
• paper cut outs (like people, snowmen, leaves, pumpkins, etc)
• wood cutouts available at the craft store
• wood toys, boxes, and plaques available at the craft store
• clear plastic plaques (often come with their own paint)
• plaster figurines
• rocks
• fabric
• paper plates
• tin foil
• Tee shirts with washable paint (also could use stuffed animals that are designed for washing)
• tissue paper like Eric Carle
• sidewalk if you make chalk paint
• windows with right kind of paint
• snow with water and food coloring in a squirt bottle
• cardboard boxes / cardboard play house 
• tiles to make keep sake wall hangings or trivets

Watercolors on a coffee filter turned into a butterfly

Wood cutouts.  I was very impressed with how well Natalie covered her turtle with no help.  She needed some help with he train because the orange kept mixing with the blue.  I find if I do my own painting or craft separately, she does more on her own, thus you can see my Monarch butterfly. 

 My top two painting tips:

1. Buy a set of primary color paint and white and black.  Mix the rest of the colors yourself to save money.  As the paint bottles are used up, refill the empties with the secondary colors.  After a little while you will have all the colors ready to use in smaller easy to use bottles.  Then you can start buying the big bottles and use them just for refilling.   
2.  Buy something like a pallet to put the different colors out for your child(ren) to use.  I had a hard time finding something that wasn't part of a set.  Eventually, I bought an Easter egg holder that is supposed to be used for dying eggs.  It has 12 spots for paint just the right size and it was only about a buck.