Tuesday, July 23, 2013

Reusing toddler paintings

My kids have a sweet easel which they use love and abuse.
 I am happy to provide water, paper and new watercolors etc on occasion. 
And because I was a born and raised saver I like to use things to their fullest extent. So when we've appreciated a painting long enough it goes into the re-use phase. 
 I like to use their random paintings because most often at the ages 2-4 they are quite lovely color washes. I hand them scraps of card stock and then later use them to make greeting cards, or cut up their work to use on bag toppers or other crafts. 
We use the large paintings as wrapping paper etc. 

My mother in law showed us how to make crafty 3-D flowers. They kids enjoyed it a lot. However, flowers in nature aren't perfect and I don't have those scalloped dye cuts but I do have little hands that are learning to use scissors so on occasion I have set them to work cutting circles with those fancy pattern scissors.
I then have them arrange their circle-ish shapes in order of size and have them select graduating sizes. 
At least 4. I poke a hole in them all and they put a brad through. 
They crumple them up and then open it back up.
Pretty.
They usually do a few of these and then go on to another project and I save their circles and flowers for when I want to embellish something. 
I also ready their easel with new paper and card stock for the next time they get a hankering to paint. Which I hope is soon because I need more card stock color washes for cards. :)

We both win. They get to practice cutting and sorting and fine motor. I get to reuse their art and pass the pretty along. 

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