Sponge Painting

Any craft that involves household items to create is a winner if you ask me! Chances are you will have all the items you need in the cupboard, the activity is going to be nice and cheap, and the kids are going to learn to be resourceful and imaginative with everyday items! Winners all round!

Enter stage left - sponge painting! 

I found this little gem found in 'Childrens Art & Crafts' by The Australian Women's Weekly' - a publication that was printed when I was a kid, and used by my own mum as a reference point for creating with my siblings and I! I remember pouring over it's pages with glee as a child, my head buzzing with ideas, and fingers itching to create!

All you need for this little activity is:

A craft apron to protect your little ones clothes - Jilly Jumbles can provide these!

Thick household sponges cut into shapes (you can also glue two thin sponges together).

Clothes pegs to act as handles for stamps - simply cut two slits at the top of each sponge to clip into.

Plates / bowls for coloured paint, and paper for stamping!

'A print is making an impression of an object onto paper or another surface. Printing encourages an appreciation of texture and the development of a design through the repetition of an impression... Because small muscle co-ordination is not necessary to quickly achieve attractive reproductions of objects, young children experience a sense of great accomplishment.'

Extract from 'Childrens Art & Crafts' by The Australian Women's Weekly'

We used paper plates as our medium for stamping, I find the thick cardboard great for handling paint, and easy for little hands to hold still while stamping. The paint impression from the sponges created a very interesting textural effect, and my boys loved experimenting with overlapping stamp impressions, dragging the stamps across the paper, and mixing colours! A fantastic activity, which we highly recommend you try at your place! (Oh, and you could of course wash and keep the sponges for next time - but I have to admit to being relieved at simply chucking these ones out...)

 

Paper Plate ALIEN SPACE SHIP

We LOVE paper plates around here! 

They are fantastic for eating off of course - to save on washing up at big gatherings - BUT even more fantastic for craft! They're so versatile! This craft is adapted from a fantastic idea we saw on 'Mr Maker' last week, to use paper plates as the base for our 'space ship' instead of the containers he used!

We went straight to our 'doodle drawers' to collect the bits and pieces we'd need for this activity - though our 'doodle drawers' actually look more like a fabulous Ikea trolley, filled to bursting with everything we'll ever need for a rainy day - or a sunny one at that!

We wore:
Jilly Jumbes 'Colour Me Apron' 

We used:

2 X paper plates.

1 X fluffy ball thingy.

1 X clear plastic container (who's previous life was nuts...)

3 X craft googly eyes (the 3 is vital here, if you ask my assistant).

Sparkly pipe cleaners, round colourful things, and textas to decorate.

Stapler/craft clue.

A piece of string to hang your spaceship at the end.

We turned one paper plate upside down and decorated it (this was the top piece of our spaceship). Stuck the fluffy ball thingy in the center and popped on 3 eyes - that's your alien!!

Then we decorated the upside down clear plastic container, and glued it over the top of our alien (best to tie your string on for hanging before you glue this down...), and stapled our second paper plate to the underside of the first! 

So simple, and I let my three year old guide all the decorating through the whole process! We hung our spaceship to a tree and had a lot of fun playing!

'Making things is a way of expressing one's unique self, part of the process of becoming a strong and whole individual. A pasted egg-carton or an indecipherable scribble is an individual's own miraculous creation. The adult's job is to provide suitable materials, encourage the process, value the result and clear up the mess.'

The New Useful Book - Songs and Ideas from ABC Play School

Spray Bottle Painting

This probably isn't new to you, but it is to me! Suggested by one of my fabulous Jilly Jumbles customers, we gave spray bottle painting a whirl at our place this spring! 

I picked up four cheap spray bottles from Woolies - less than $2 each - filled each with a different coloured squirt of paint diluted with a little water. Then tapped long rolls of paper to our fence OUTSIDE (we love the paper roll from Ikea - it's nice a thick), and whacked on our Jilly Jumbles craft aprons!

Bobs your Uncle, Fanny's your aunt (not that I've ever understood that saying) - we were ready to create! My three and five year old boys LOVED experimenting with this craft!! And all I had to do was hose the fence down afterwards, happy days!

'Painting is primarily a blend of colour, texture and design. Young children are almost overwhelmed with the sensation of colour blending with colour and are amazed at their own power to create beautiful images, unusual designs and new textures...
'Paint is thick, drippy, transparent, opaque, airy or glossy. The wonderful qualities of paint combine to lead a child on a new sensory adventure. Encourage the young artist to experiment rather than copy our examples exactly. Mix paints and textures, let different techniques be combined for delightful new effects.'
 
Extract from 'CHILDRENS ART AND CRAFTS' The Australian Women's Weekly 

  (One of my favourite 'go to' books for crafty ideas!)

We even came back to our artwork the following day to create a very special banner!! (We forgot to put on our aprons that day...that was a mistake...but we live and learn people...we live and learn...)