Messy Art Projects

messyart1

Remember last month where we had one whole morning where Henry and I did a bunch of crazy/messy/loud things we don’t usually get to do? We had so much fun last time we had another morning like that on Friday. This time I wanted to get into messy art projects since I’ve noticed that he’s gotten timid about getting his hands +body dirty. I wanted him to enjoy the mess (because, really, those are the best kinds of projects!)

messyart8

First up was a large scale finger painting project!  Clorox has a funny list of ick-tionary terms to define all those messy, icky moments in parenting (car-posting might be my favorite: when a piece of food left in the car starts to compost. ha!).

I created my own ick-tionary term, marssy, for these messy art projects we did. messyart6The only instructions I gave him for this marssy was that he couldn’t use brushes and he had to cover the entire poster board with paint (don’t worry guys, washable paint!). I rolled out a huge sheet of brown kraft paper and he dropped paint onto paper plates for his artist palette.

messyart7

At first he only used one itty bitty finger like the house trained city boy he is, and when I told him to try putting his whole hand in, he looked at me a little skeptically, but then went for it!

messyart5

I also straight up suggested he could wipe the paint on his old jeans if he needed (what??), I think he first thought it was a joke- then when I insisted he was completely delighted! He even ended up finger painting on himself in the end (I still had to give him permission though).

messyart9

Cleaning up was fun too- he wiped off the spots on the floor that were splattered with paint (there were surprisingly only a couple) and we wiped off his body a bit with a wet towel. We threw the pants in the washer and rolled up the kraft paper once dried to use again for scrap paper.

messyart3

Why don’t we do more marssy projects like this? It was so much fun both for him and for me to watch!

Keep reading to see our messy art project, marssy #2…

_______________________________________________________________________________

This post is brought to you by The Clorox Company. I have partnered with them to spread the word about Clorox’s Ick-tionary program. To share Ick-tionary terms and real life messes, visit www.icktionary.com. All opinions and stories are my own.

_______________________________________________________________________________

When shopping for Easter goods last week I spotted some colored bubbles and thought they would be really fun to use in a project (and totally easy to make yourself)!

messybubble5

First we mixed regular bubble solution with food coloring of our choice, about 5 drops in each bowl. Because food coloring is a little more permanent I had to be a bit more careful this time, but it still was super easy to clean up afterwards. messybubble1

Then I instructed Henry to blow bubbles onto the paper and when they popped they left a beautiful colored design! Both the bubbles and the dripping solution onto the paper was really pretty.

messybubble2

We never get to blow bubbles in the house, especially not colored bubbles! They popped and splattered all over- Henry was giggling the whole time.

messybubble3

Pretty Easter colors too! I love the result. It was fun for me to try as well.

messybubble4

I’d love to hear: what ick-tionary word can you think of to describe your daily messes that you can laugh about afterwards? Here’s another favorite to get the wheels turning: What the flu?: When someone unexpectedly  sneezes on you (the worst!)

Comments

Such cute art projects! I especially love the food coloring bubbles. I would never have thought the results would be so beautiful!

When I was little, my mom and I used to make stationery to sell at craft bazaars by tinting bubble solution with food coloring, blowing into it with a bendy straw, and then gently rolling a sheet of paper or an envelope on the resulting bubbles in the cup or bowl. It makes the coolest images. I bet your kiddo would have fun with it too!

Both of these look awesome. I’ll have to try them with the kids I nanny for. He looks like he loved the mess!

This looks like so much fun! I the ick-tionary words are funny, i like the sneeze one! he hee

These look like such fun crafts! I’ll have to use them on my niece (with permission). I can’t quite tell in the one photo where he’s cleaning up, but make sure you aren’t using Clorox wipes on any people; they’re great for disinfecting surfaces but aren’t body safe. Happy mess-making!

yeah, he just wiped down the spots on the floor with them. we used a regular dishtowel with warm water to clean his body 🙂

Comments are closed.