The other Saturday night, in normal haphazard style, The Husband remembered that he had to work on Sunday morning. Normally when he’s working I try to have a plan in place but as this was last minute I had to think on my feet a bit. The result was looking for ways to paint without a paintbrush. We stopped off first thing at Wilkinsons and did a quick 99p purchase but other than that everything we found was around the house or garden. My son loved doing it so I thought I would share it with you!
1) Pom poms, lovely and squishy and perfect for small hands
2) Pipecleaners, always get loads of these in craft packs and other than making crowns I never have a clue what to do with them. Obviously paint was the answer.
3) Flowers. We used dandelions (messy) and bluebells (super cute) These were probably the most popular things as hunting in the garden for things to paint with sounds very subversive when you are three!
4) Sponges, we cut up a scouring pad from the kitchen
5) Buttons, these made a nice addition for a bit more texture
6) Feathers, we used them like soft pencils
7) Foam stamps, these were our one purchase before hand and were great fun
8) Wool, dip it in the paint and then swirled around the paper
9) Tissue paper, rolled up in a ball and spread around
10) Foil shapes, totally not my choice! By this time my son was well into it and was hunting stuff out from the cupboard!
11) Hands. You knew hands would get involved in the end, right? Yep. It got very very messy!
Finding different ways to paint without a paintbrush by hunting out different materials was a great way to keep my toddler interested in what we were doing as oppossed to ‘just’ painting which he can get bored of quickly (while still creating carnage). I’m now thinking of different things that we could use to paint with, cars? Toy dinosaurs? What do you like to use to encourage your children to paint more?
Linking up with Mondays Parenting Pin It Party and Let Kids Be Kids.
We seem to always go back to hands! Trying to encourage finger painting instead of full-on hand prints as our fridge display could do with a bit more variety now! Some great ideas here and we have the same foam stamps too – they were a real bargain find.
Great ideas! We often do finger painting (not always intentionally!) but had never thought of using anything else!
When my ten year old was a toddler, he did some very inventive bottom painting…..messy business, but was hysterical watching him sit in a plate of paint I had intended for his feet, then squash his buttocks onto a large bit of paper!
@Sonya Cisco – that is hilarious. Hope you kept the results.
*snorts inappropriately* How lovely!! 😉
So much fun! I’ve never used string – must give that a try!
Pinning this 😀
Great ideas Kate – mine are too old for this now, but I used to give them a paintbrush and bucket of water. They would paint the walls and patio in the garden, trying to make shapes / words etc before the sun dried it away.
……a lot less messy than your ideas (but maybe not so much fun)!
Oh that’s a brilliant idea! Will be trying that soon!!
Oh this is fantastic and lots of fun .x
Sounds fab! My little man doesn’t really like crafty things… he will dig around in the mud and always wants to play in the drain (eww!) but when I tried making him “clean mud” last week he squealed in protest and whilst he will paint occasionally he really isn’t interested in getting his hands “dirty” with anything other than mud!
What a fun activity and its a great way for sensory play with different textures.
Ha ha I knew a post like this couldn’t NOT include hand painting x x
And arm…and elbow… oh my poor bathroom!!
great ideas, mine love using different things to paint with, it’s so much fun
These are great ideas hun. I need to be braver and start doing painting with Baby x
I love this. I think we’ve used potatoes/ other veg and of course fingers and feet, but I’d like to your other ideas too. Buttons and flowers sound really fun.
I love this! We always try to be inventive when we have painting sessions like this. Another fun one to paint with is bubble wrap
It is a fantastic way to get them involved in their own creativity and keep it exciting! I love that he sought out tin foil! We love painting with lego and duple, cars and natural materials like pine cones. Once you start experimenting it is hard to limit the mess so we usually explore first, gather all our bits and pieces and then get messy 🙂
I bet your son loved it! What a great way to keep him entertained 🙂 I was always useless at doing craft when my lot were little – reserving it for the nursery teachers!
What clever ideas – it sounds to me like you make a very good reception class teacher! X
Shhhh! I’m dyslexic and I can’t spell or hold a pen, trust me I don’t think any parent would really want me there 😉
We love painting with our fingers in this house. We also enjoy using tissue paper. I am going to try the foil idea next time the paints come out. Thank you for sharing 🙂
Lately I’ve seen painting with a bubble wrap… it looked very inspiring
My girls don’t really ask to paint anymore now a bit older but there are some great ideas there 🙂
Mine adore painting with their feet – only a summer activity though as its very messy
some great ideas to make lovely textures with
Some really wonderful ideas here. We like fingers and sponge shapes.
Many brilliant ideas here! In the past, we have used cotton buds, toy car wheels, straw (clean straw out of the bag, that was intended for the rabbits!), our feet, potato prints, a pair of old shoes (printing the soles). All sorts! Painting is ALWAYS great fun! It sounds like it is in your house too 🙂
My son loves painting with flowers and the results are always super sweet.
great mark making post
Really great ideas! Thanks for sharing. #letkidsbekids
Fab messy play ideas, paints are always a win in my house #letkidsbekids
Cute and easy ideas. Will try them soon.. 🙂
#letkidsbekids
That’s a great idea for children to explore different materials and textures and effects. I might have to try that with my kids.
Thanks for linking #LetKidsBeKids
Aw, thanks dude 🙂 Yo are super at kids stuff so that means a lot x
So many great ideas here. My daughter is just 12 months. I’ve not really started painting with her yet but I bought her a set of toddler brushes and stamps the other day. She did do hand prints at nursery the other day, apparently she wasn’t too sure about it.
Oh we started that way too, sadly it doesn’t last 😉
Oh nice thank you for putting this together for us. Plan mime to go through all this weekend!
Thank you for linking with the #pinitparty