Finger Painting Bags

I knew these two little kids were not going to wait patiently while I got dinner ready tonight so I pulled another trick out of my Pinterest bag - Finger Painting Bags. This is genius. I mean completely and totally genius. Finger painting without the mess of finger painting. How cool is that?

Supplies:

• Paint
• Ziploc bags
• Tape (Painters tape works well)
• Sheet of white paper

Put a big squirt of paint into a ziploc bag. You can use one color or use a couple colors and teach your kids all about mixing colors. Push out the air bubbles and zip up the bag.

Tape the bag to the table over a sheet of paper. You don't need the paper but it will help your kids see the colors better. Then let them "paint" away.

Finley had fun showing her little brother the "right" way to paint. He doesn't look pleased, does he?

These bags can be used again and again. After the kids did their painting at the table, we moved them to the fridge. And after they get bored with that I'm going to peel them off and save them for another "I'm bored, Mommy!" kind of day.

Check out the Crafts and Activities page or my post on 10 activities to help avoid a toddler meltdown for more ideas on keeping your kids entertained.

Painting Pumpkins

I was really excited when I found this painting pumpkins post at Young House Love. Finley had fun painting her little pumpkins from Flower World and I loved the idea of using painter's tape to make them look a little more Halloween-y.

Let me just say that my children were not blessed with the Young House Love decorating genes (they've got the programmer genes, poor things). If you're looking for pumpkins that could be sold at an art gallery, go here. (Honestly, check out their pumpkins. They're gorgeous!) Otherwise, keep on reading...

Tools Required:

• Pumpkins
• Painters
• Painter's Tape
• Paint
• Paint Brushes
• Exacto Knife (I couldn't think of a "p" word for that. Darn, I was on a roll there.)

The idea is to put tape on the pumpkin and use the exacto knife to cut out the face shapes. Then you peel away the extras and you're left with a cute little pumpkin face. 

Apparently, that was above my crafting skill level or my knife was a little dull. It didn't work for me at all so I just cut the shapes with scissors and taped them on.

And since that took longer than the 30 seconds of patience the kids had, I quickly did some stripes on one pumpkin and some squares on another.

All ready to paint!

This was Grady's first time painting. The boy thinks everything is food so of course the paint brush went straight to the mouth. I guess I'll be brushing his teeth tonight. ;)

Finley had a lot of fun painting her rainbow pumpkin. She's very serious about her art.

It was at this point I was feeling pretty good about getting through a painting project without a huge mess or a meltdown (from me or the kids). I patted myself on the back, put the completed pumpkins on the kitchen counter to dry, and took the 3-year-old doing a strange little dance to the bathroom. Then I realized... it's quiet. Too quiet. That can't be good. And it wasn't.

I walked into the kitchen and found this mess. Using my CSI skills, my prime suspect was a small child, about counter-height, missing a binky and covered in paint.

It didn't take long to find him. Book 'em!

But who can stay mad at that cute face?

Back to the pumpkins... After the paint has dried, start peeling away at the tape and you're left with this...

They're kinda cute aren't they? If you have little ones this is a great way to do the Halloween pumpkin thing without a trip to urgent care.

Happy Halloweenie!