During our fabulous British springtime it's hard to get motivated to leave the house for yet another soaking, so I'm trying to come up with more exciting ideas for activities and avoid all day Spongebob or Pixar marathons (not that there is anything wrong with either...).
Well, last week, during another week of constant rain, I finally decided to tackle messy crafts with both children involved. We used to do a lot of painting, dough, model making and messy stuff when it was just me and Ruby (now aged 4), but I've been a bit nervous to get out the messies with the boy (age 1) involved as well.
So I loaded up the dining table with dough, paints, crayons and paper, set Alex up in his high chair and Ruby on her booster and stood back...
It went pretty well, Alex now has his own set of crayons, chalks and finger paints - no risk of upsetting Ruby by taking her stuff! - so he got stuck in and did some constructive paint-eating, chalk-in-paint-dipping, crayon-dropping and even a bit of painting and drawing!
For Ruby, I finally made a fresh batch of salt-dough, which I'd been promising since we moved house (2 months ago). If you've never done home-made salt dough, I think it's great - it's cheap and easy to make and sets rock hard after a few days (or weeks if it's a really hefty model!) - see end of the post for recipe!
However, after making the dough, Ruby started a new interest, after having watched "Numberjacks" on Cbeebies that morning she decided she wanted to recreate The Problem Blob (if you've seen it you will understand!) by pouring paint from the bottle straight onto her paper - this worked pretty well, although resulted in pictured that took about a week to dry!
All in all, a pretty nice afternoon, Alex's first real messy play experience and some nice painting for Ruby. And we didn't spend all day watching TV!
How to make salt-dough:
This is the recipe I've been using, although there are lots of variations. You can use any measuring cup, it's the proportions that are important.
- 2 cups plain (all purpose) flour
- 1 cup salt
- 3/4 cup water topped up with 1/4 cup vegetable oil
- food colourings, powder paint or ready mixed water-based children's paints
Mix the flour and salt, add the water and oil and mix with hands until a flexible dough is formed - you can also use a dough hook in a food processor. Add colouring while you mix, or mix in paints after (you can divide the dough up after mixing to make lots of different colours). I find ready mixed paints work best and help to improve the texture of the dough. Add more flour or water if mixture is too dry or too soggy. You can bake finished models in a very cool oven for a few hours (about 100c) or leave to dry for a few days of weeks, depending on their size.
There ya go!
More ideas, recipes and inspiration (I hope) next time!
