1. Ice Pop Painting
What’s better than a craft activity to cool off the kids on a hot summer day? The Ice Pop Painting craft is both fun and refreshing! You probably already have the ingredients on hand: a few drops of food coloring, water, an ice cube tray, and a few short popsicle sticks. Even better, the kids can get multiple entertaining activities out of this craft.
First, they can work on what paints they want by deciding what colors they want use. We suggest using one cup of water to one drop of coloring – but if they want a more intense color, go ahead and add more drops. Or they might want colors that are beyond the standard- don’t be afraid to experiment. For example, they can choose to mix one drop of yellow with one drop of blue and watch it turn green or use red and yellow to make orange. You get the idea! Let them experiment with all the colors of the rainbow. This can also be a quick science lesson on the different states of water and the conditions in which liquid turns into a solid.
We like freezing our ice paints in popsicle molds. Be sure to stick in a popsicle stick so little hands can easily do this activity and hold the ice mold. The shape of an ice pop is perfect for painting, and the handle makes it really easy for little hands to manage. No frozen fingers or color-stained hands!
After your ice paints have fully froze (about an hour), unmold and head outside to the sidewalk, walkway, stairs or back deck and start painting! As the paint pops begin to melt from the sun, the kids will have so much fun painting their little artist hearts out! And no worries about dripping paint or messy clean up!
If you’d like to try these as a rainy-day activity, use watercolor paper or cardboard to create a masterpiece!
2. 5 Minute Bubble Painting Hydrangea Flowers
Make beautiful bubble painting Hydrangea flowers! This is a fun DIY dish soap paint recipe, great kids’ art activity, and a beginner watercolor idea!
This may just be one of the easiest and most fun watercolor flower painting projects, because you don’t even have to “paint’! Love blowing bubbles? Love to paint Hydrangea flowers?
Easy Bubble Paint Recipe
IMPORTANT: Use paint and dish soap that are labeled Non-Toxic!
You can buy bubble paint, but it’s very easy to make your own! We tested a few mixes, and the one we are really happy with is 1 part (by volume) nontoxic acrylic paint, 1-part nontoxic dish soap, and 2-3 parts water depending on how thick the paint is. We suggest using card stock paper or water color paper to make your painting.
Directions
Step 1: Mix Bubble paint
Find a Tupperware or large mixing bowl to mix the paint. Mix the bubble paint (1 part (by volume) nontoxic acrylic paint, 1-part nontoxic dish soap, and 2-3 parts water depending on how thick the paint is). Now let the fun begin!
Step 2: Take a straw and blow some air into the bubble paint mixture. You will see bubbles forming on the surface. When you get a clump of fat bubbles, take a piece of paper and gently press it onto the bubbles. The goal is to let the paper touch the bubbles, but not the mixed paint below. You can repeat a couple of times to get the desired shapes and colors!
We used 2 colors for our example (see photo) one dish has rose pink, the other purple. A shallow dish works well because the bubbles can come up easily, and when you press the paper onto the bubbles, the paper won’t touch the rim of the dish and cause smudging.
Step 3: Now your Hydrangea flowers are starting to take shape! It’s time to add some details. To add some 3D texture, we used regular watercolor paint to make some green leaves for our blossoms. We painted about 10 leaves on watercolor paper, then let those dry. Cut and paste them onto your hydrangea masterpiece!
3. DIY Wind Chimes
This is a craft that nobody can mess up! Take the craftiness outside so you’re not concerned about the mess and then let the kids decorate!! We love all the clever ideas for getting the tin cans to make different clanking noises. Believe us, there’s a lot you can do with stuff from your recycling bin! Upcycle whatever you can for the kids to play and create with!
To make you will need:
- cleaned out tin cans
- paint ( Tempera paint)
- string
- hammer
- nail
- metal washers or nuts
- glitter (optional)
- tape (optional)
Remember to check over your cans for sharp edges. We taped around the rims of the cans to prevent any cuts.
Steps:
- Paint the outside of the tin cans with washable tempera paint. You can then roll the can in glitter.
- We did this project outside! But, If you’re working inside, lay down some newspaper or even a plastic shower curtain liner to contain the mess.
- After the paint dries, use a hammer to nail a hole in the bottoms of the tin cans. If your grandchildren are too young for this part, give them assistance.
- We put a long piece of yarn through the holes and tied two washers onto the end of the string, inside the tin cans. One washer is used to hold the yarn in place, the other is placed at the end of the string to make a lovely clanking sound when it hits the tin can.
- You can also use nuts or rocks instead of washers…something that is hard enough to make a noise when it hits the can.
- Experiment with sound—once you’ve tied on your washers to the wind chimes, test out the noise it makes.
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