Bubble Paint

Leo and I are home together on Wednesdays. I love that I get some extra time with my little man. I usually try to plan something fun for us to do, whether it's an outing, or some type of play experience that we haven't had before. 

I spend a lot of time perusing Pinterest to come up with simple and fun ideas. I came across the idea to make bath time finger paints the other day. Leo does a lot of painting at school, so I thought he would enjoy this. I can't seem to find the source for this recipe, and there are many other recipes for bath paint using shaving cream or corn starch. But the one I read used baby powder and baby bubble bath. 

I had both of these things on hand, so I figured why not. I had purchased an enormous bottle of baby powder when we were preparing for Leo's arrival when I felt like I needed supplies to be ready. I didn't realize that using talc based baby powder has fallen out of favor, so it was great to find a use for this huge bottle (well, aside from helping to remove sand from our legs at the beach—try it, it works!) I read that you can also use water, but the bubble bath adds a bubble element, which sounded fun. I just mixed the two together until I had a consistency I was happy with. 

My goal with this blog is to try and share new fun things, without harping on making the process look perfectly beautiful. So, while a lot of other recipes show a beautiful rainbow of paint displayed in a muffin tin, I rummaged through my Tupperware drawer for three small containers, and kept it simple with the three primary colors. A few drops of food coloring was all it took. 

It was a big hit. Leo scooped every last drop of paint out of those containers, and then he filled them with water and dumped them out a few times. Nothing like a multi-functional toy, right?

What is that?

I received this same question multiple times after posting a video of Leo enjoying this experience on Facebook. I had planned a post on a different homemade play experience, but given the reaction on FB, I thought I would document this topic right away.



So what is it?



They are tapioca pearls—giant (well, relatively speaking compared to what's normally in tapioca pudding), beads of tapioca that are commonly found in a beverage called bubble tea. Yes, I have heard of that. No, I've never tried it.



As is true of many of my crafty endeavors lately, I stumbled upon this idea on Pinterest. I immediately went to Amazon to purchase some Tapioca Pearls. It was important to get the quick cook type, which require boiling for only 5 minutes to be ready. I prepared them while Leo was eating his lunch. And then we let them cool while we took a nap!



When we got up from our nap, I scooped the pearls out of the pot, and put them into a cookie sheet. As you can see, some of them come colored, and I couldn't help myself but to sort them accordingly. I then added two drops of food coloring to each pile. I didn't want to add too much color since we were planning to play with with our hands. I wasn't sure how well the color would stick, and I wanted to avoid having too much get on our hands. They would be just as fun to play with if you skipped the food coloring if you are concerned about the mess.



When the pearls were ready to go, I got Leo settled at the table with a tray full of containers, spoons, a bit of water, etc. and started scooping out our new toy. They are a little bit sticky, which is kind of fun in it's own right, but when they wet, the stickiness seems to go away, and they are a little easier to handle.



Leo played with these for about an hour. He picked them up and put them in containers, he scooped them and dumped them. He put them one at a time into the spout of the cup, and then used a straw or whisk to shove them through when they got stuck. He did taste a few, but elected not to eat them, which I thought was a wise choice, even though they are technically edible.



When we were done, Leo was soaking wet, but his hands were not stained a rainbow of color. The color stayed put on the pearls, and slowly rinsed away in the water. And what's a change of clothes for an hour of fun?



The best part is that we only used half of them. I saved the other half in the fridge to play with later this weekend. I'm not sure how long they will keep, they are food based after all, but I'm sure we will get at least one more session out of them.

A Pinteresting Admission

Last fall, when I posted some of Leo's birthday party photos on Face*book, a friend from my mom group commented that she was sure I existed to make the rest of them look bad. It's true, that as a designer, a goal of mine is to make beautiful things, things that are worthy of being pinned. And in fact, it seems that I might be starting to succeed at that! 

But that is not the whole story. 

Friday, I grabbed the stack of Valentines and put them in an envelope to go in Leo's bag. Then I realized that I forgot to make the Valentine snack I had promised to send in for the party. Because yeah, getting things ready ahead of time, not my forte. So, I got busy creating these. Of course, I had to embellish the container to make it feel more festive with my new favorite craft supply, washi tape. 

And...promptly forgot to put the envelope of Valentines in Leo's bag. 

Mom fail!

I felt a little bit better when I picked Leo up that afternoon and discovered that the only Valentine he received was from his teacher. The kids in his class really are a little young for this tradition, so I guess none of them participated. Oh well. I will still be sending in the cards next week for a little belated surprise. I'm sure they will still be appreciated. 

So yeah, I might be good at making things look good. But supermom, far from it!

Hearts, Dinosaurs and Washi Tape

When I was in fourth grade, my heart was broken when my teacher decided to have us make a donation to charity instead of passing out Valentine cards in class. I already had the supplies I was going to use to make mine—a heart shaped pad of paper with beautiful red, pink, purple and blue sheets, and stickers to decorate with. I never got to use them. So, imagine my delight when I picked Leo up from school the other day and his teacher told me she'd be sending me a list of names of the kids in the class. 

I get to make Valentines! 

I mean, Leo's a little young to do it himself, right? I fully expect to let him take the lead when he is older, but I do hope to pass along my love of art and design. It's never too early to get started, right?

I did what any good crafter does these days. I consulted Pinterest for inspiration. I had a rough idea of doing something with dinosaurs, thanks to a suggestion from my mom. When I found the phrase, "dino-mite," I came up with my idea. 

To ensure Leo had the option to participate, I printed the outlines of the dinosaur on to a red piece of paper. Then, I got out a some chalk pencils to see what he would do. I quickly realized that I needed to tape the paper down or he would just push it around without making any marks. I got out some washi tape and decided to tape the paper to the floor. Leo made a few marks, but mostly seemed interested in carrying around as many of the pencils as he could fit into one hand. 

I set about printing the card backgrounds and left Leo to do his thing. When I looked back down at the floor, he had taken a longer piece of the pink washi tape and put it on the paper. I decided to go with it, and got out a few more rolls I thought would coordinate. I ripped off some pieces for him to put down, and tried to encourage him to color a little bit more on the paper. 

He mostly seemed interested in doing this...

 

He did decide he wanted to sit on my lap and see what I was doing when I was gluing the dinosaurs on to the cards. 

The introduction of the washi tape into the design inspired me to take it further. I always new that I was going to add up side down hearts as spikes on the dinos' backs, but I hadn't quite figured out how I was going to do that. I had planned to print, cut, and glue them. Using washi tape allowed me to eliminate a few steps. All I had to do was cut them and stick them down. I will admit, it's a little tricky to cut smaller than half inch hearts out of tape, but I love the way they turned out. Hopefully Leo's friends will too! 

Happy Valentine's Day everyone!

Christmas Eve

It’s Christmas Eve, and the house is decked, the cookies are frosted, and the gifts are wrapped. Our wrapping paper this year is a little bit Whovile, but I am kind of living it. And yes, approximately a third of the gifts under our tree are for my niece Clara. 

This year, I also managed a few crafts that I’ve been wanting to get to for quite awhile. One was painting this green tree candle holder to better match my holiday decor. It used to be a rusty brown color. I love the way it looks in green. Another was to finally fill some holiday frames with photos. They’ve been sitting around empty for far too long. I love how Clara’s face looked framed by a snowflake. 

Lastly, we’ve received so many great cards this year from family and friends. I’ve been having fun collaging them on to the back of our front closet door.

Greg and I are looking forward to waking up in our new home for our first of many Christmas mornings here. I hope everyone is having a very Merry Christmas Eve!

Comments transferred from previous Blog:

VP

Looks ready for Sanata. I love it.

Friday, December 24, 2010 - 08:27 PM

ANONYMOUS

Pretty Jen, I love the tree and gifts!!!  The tree candle holder looks lovely too!!!  Merry Christmas!

Friday, December 24, 2010 - 09:23 PM