diy kids watercolour paintings {using food colouring}

I love simple, fun and creative activities. Particularly when they involve reading a book.

We recently read the book The Three Monsters Big Night Out by Laurence Bourguignon and Michael Derullieux after borrowing it from our local library.

It is a lovely, non scary story about monsters that was enjoyed by our 5 year old in particular. I wanted to keep the enthusiasm going so I got our water colour pad out of the craft cupboard. Our pad is A3 in size and cost a few dollars.

I used food colouring for paint; a teaspoonful added to a bit of water works well.

After drawing our monsters with lead pencil the painting began. We were working at our dining table, so I tore off some sheets of aluminium foil to place underneath the paintings. I'm sure there would have been a bit of seepage through to the tablecloth otherwise!

The idea was to draw and paint roughly; lines didn't need to be exact and neither did the painting.

 Everyone did a painting. These are Eli's four monsters.

Lily opted for a Star Wars painting.

These were a lot of fun and clean up was only a matter of washing out the paintbrushes and glasses used for the food colouring.

These paintings also look great if you outline them in black marker once they are dry.

So, if you have younger children or are looking after children and need an activity give this a go!

star wars {recycled art work}

We have two very old (from the 70's - I guess I just called myself old!!) Star Wars board games that we have only played once. As much as we love Star Wars in our house, these games just aren't very fun to play!

I decided that we either use these games or they had to go. As there was no interest in playing them I decided to repurpose one of them. Our Escape From Death Star box went to school and became part of a year 7 mathematics project. This is the board that is now homeless!

The cards that were part of this game were also repurposed into a piece of Star Wars art work for Lily's room.  We picked over all the cards and chose 18 that were in the best condition.

I used the same red-with-pink-polka-dots paper that I used for Lily's art display frame. It made a nice background against the black and white cards.

The most difficult part of this quick and simple project was deciding how to place the Star Wars cards. I was in favour of three columns of lined up cards. Lily preferred rows of alternating angled cards.

As the project was for Lily we did it her way! I like it.

Some glue and an Ikea frame and it's ready to hang on the wall.

This particular wall is a dedicated Star Wars wall!

Any ideas on how to repurpose my boxless Star Wars game board?

gift idea {melty bowl}

 It's been over a month since my last post. Not because there hasn't been anything to share, but because we have been so busy! School finished last week and making teacher gifts was one of the things that kept us busy.

Eli made some melty bowls using Ikea beads, oil spray and a Pyrex bowl. This idea is floating around Pinterest and is a quick, easy and very fun craft project.

 We sprayed the inside of the Pyrex bowl and poured some melty (perler) beads into the bottom.

 Eli pushed the melty beads up the sides so that they were in a single layer.

 We checked to make sure that the top of the beads was fairly even in height all the way around.

And then into a preheated oven (180 degrees Celcius or 350 degrees Fahrenheit) for about 10 minutes.

 When it came out it the melty beads looked fabulous!

Lots of colours and a wonderful texture.

We waited for our colourful creation to cool before taking it out of the Pyrex bowl. We had oiled it well, so it slipped out very easily.

 A bit of a wash with dish washing liquid removed the oiliness on the outside.

And it's done!

While these are obviously not recommended for use with food, they are great for storing bits and pieces like keys or other small objects.

Eli couldn't bear to part with it, so we made a few more to give away!