Underwater Ocean Search and Find Preschool Craft and Activity

Does your child love the ocean? One of my preschooler's favorite places is our local sea center. Today I'm sharing a fun ocean themed craft that also doubles as a game!  It was inspired by this amazing FB video by kidzwiz. This activity involves doodling sea creatures and then going on an underwater adventure to find them all!  Ready to go on a crafty sea adventure?

Ocean Search and Find Craft and Activity!

(Perfect for Preschoolers)

How to Make Rainbow Bread

We've got a thing for rainbow crafts and foods over here... so when we were invited to a sweet friend's rainbow-themed birthday party, the kids and I jumped at the opportunity to bake some rainbow bread!

Let's Bake Rainbow Bread with kids!

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How to Make Corn Husk Flowers

A couple of weeks ago I took a fun corn husk flower making class at La Calenda, a cute nearby store that sells beautiful, handmaid items from Mexico. I loved the resulting corn husk flowers so much that I promptly dyed my own at home and held a fun crafternoon with some moms and kiddos. The results from both crafting sessions were so lovely that I'm sharing the how-to's behind making these flowers with you today!

How To Make Corn Husk Flowers

(A Super easy and beautiful craft for kids and adults!)

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Easy way to host a graham cracker house making party

For the past four years we've hosted a yearly graham cracker house making party.  This year I got most of the kinks of planning worked out.  Today I'm sharing all my tips so that you can easily host your own kids playdate / party too!  (And please note- I'm a super lazy and cheap party planner.  Even though this sounds like a big event, it was really affordable and easy to set up!)

How to Host a Graham Cracker House Making Party 

Dip Dye Kids Art Project

If you're looking for the easiest, funnest, cheapest, and most colorful kids summer art project... you're at the right place.  We've been dying up a storm over here and turning plain old paper towels into lovely dip dye art!

How to Make Dip Dye Art With Kids

Rainbow Grilled Cheese Sandwiches (2 ways!)

Remember that Skittles commercial where we were encouraged to "taste the rainbow?"  Weeeeeellll... I took it one step further.  Today I'm sharing yet another rainbow-themed craft.  If you're NOT a fan of food coloring, avert your eyes!  But if you're ok with using it once in awhile for creativity's sake, then read on, fellow color lovers!  Here are two ways to make... (wait for it...)  rainbow grilled cheese sandwiches!!!

Rainbow Grilled Cheese Sandwiches (2 ways!)

This post contains affiliate links.  This means I make a teeny bit off of any purchases made through the links at no extra cost to you. Thank you for your support! For my full disclosure policy, click here.

Cracked Rainbow Dinosaur Eggs for Easter

Looking for a creative Easter activity?  Have you ever tried making rainbow cracked eggs?  They're so neat and they remind me of cool dinosaur eggs!

Cracked Rainbow Dinosaur Eggs

Swing on over to DIY Candy to get my super easy cracked rainbow egg tutorial today!

Happy making, friends!

Make a Water Xylophone and start exploring Sound with kids!

Today we're doing another super easy Preschool STEAM activity!  Chuck and I recently explored sound by making our very own......

DIY Water Xylophone!

Glue Suncatchers

Awhile back I made this lovely apple faux stained glass using black glue as the "lead" and tinted clear glue (affiliate link) to paint colorful panels.  Ever since making that craft, I kept wondering if there was a way to adapt it for preschoolers.  So I came up with this super easy kids glue sun catcher activity.   It takes only 2 ingredients to make the "paint" and you probably already have all the materials on hand!

Super Easy Glue Sun catcher Art with Kids  

Fizzy and Fun Ice Painting

Are you looking for fun process oriented art activities for kids?  As a craft lover, I'm definitely biased.  I tend to pin images of kids crafts.  I can't help it.  There are always cute smiles and googly eyes on everything.  (Happy sigh.)  Yup.  That's my happy place.

But lately, I worry that I'm boxing Chuck in too much.  He isn't always keen to make crafts with me. So I'm trying to let him just explore art materials more... without stressing about what the end product will look like.  (It's hard...but I think it's an important process for both of us.)

Today I'm joining with 34 other kid bloggers to share some fun, process oriented art activities that children will enjoy!  It's a series all about fun and messy exploration.  So check the bottom of the post for a link to all 35 ideas!

Here's my process oriented activity that Chuck and I recently completed together:

Fizzy and Fun Ice Painting 

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Candy Mosaic Art with Kids

Do you still have leftover Halloween candy?  Eeek. We do.  This week's Creative Preschooler theme is food!  With Chuck's current aversion to painting, I thought it would be fun to use our excess candy and make art with it!  So we made ourselves some lovely, colorful candy mosaic art!

Make Candy Mosaic Art with Kids!

It's always special to make art with non-traditional materials.  Some of my favorite food-art projects include our colored salt art, tortilla art,  gumdrop flowers, cornstarch sidewalk paint, and homemade watercolor paints!

2-Ingredient Puffy Paint Fall Leaves

Sometimes I have to pinch myself to remind myself that it's fall.  (I'm just not used to warm temperatures at this time of year.)  Chuck and I enjoyed doing fall crafts back in Jersey, so I thought we should try doing some fall crafts here too... even though it doesn't quite feel fall yet...

During a nature walk, we counted quite a few red trees outside.  Boy, was I surprised!  So we drew inspiration from them and made these two-ingredient Homemade Puffy Paint Fall Leaves!

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Awhile back we had some success making gluten free homemade puffy paint.  But I was feeling kind of lazy and didn't have all the right materials on hand.  Luckily, we found a super easy recipe for puffy paint on several blogs, and tried it out.

I'll bet you could easily make this puffy paint today.  You probably have all the ingredients already at home.

Homemade Finger painted Starry Night

I love Van Gogh's artwork.  The colors, the movement, the textures... wow, wow, wow.  How does someone even do that?  Yowzers.  Gosh, did he make the world so much more beautiful with his art.  *Happy sigh*  Ok, ok... I'm back.  Let's get to today's post!  Chuck and I have explored great artwork in the past by making collages inspired by Matisse and super easy abstract artwork.  So I thought it was high time we tried our hand at making some artwork inspired by Van Gogh.   Except that instead of using real paints... we used some homemade finger paints!  

Collaborative Art Project:  Finger Painted Starry Night!

(This post contains affiliate links.  Thank you so much for your support!)

For months now I kept seeing Kidzaw Master Art Kits pop up everywhere.  (Have you heard of them?  They're kits that provide kids with all the materials necessary to make artwork inspired the great artists.)  I saw great results with older children and toyed with the idea of buying one to try out.  But Chuck's only 2 and I'll be honest, his affinity for arts and crafts varies daily.  Yurp.  So I came up with this cheaper alternative.  The finger paint is super easy to make and you could adapt the design to recreate any of Van Gogh's artwork.

So let's begin!

Make Bubble Prints! (from 101 Kids Activities)

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About a month ago, I received a free copy of 101 Kids Activities to review.   It was written by the amazing kid blogger duo Rachel and Holly from Kids Activities Blog.  These ladies are like the queens of kid fun and I was super excited to see what they had in store.  101 and activities?  Wowzers.  

After looking through the book, I can definitely say that it is an awesome go-to resource for anyone who wants to battle kid boredom.  (Which seems to be especially prevalent in the summer... right?)  The activities are super fun and use everyday, affordable materials.  Here's an example of one activity that Chuck and I tried out from the book- bubble prints!    

Make Bubble Prints!

Homemade Body Paint Recipe (2 ingredients Needed!)

Last week I shared a simple 3-ingredient homemade body paint recipe. While we had fun trying it out, I kept wondering if there was another way to make homemade body paint.  Turns out there is!  I peeked around the internet and found this neat series of body paint recipes.  The author shares a couple recipes that involved using washable white paint (which I kind of felt weird using on my skin...)  and one that involved using two ingredients that I already had on hand.  

2 Ingredient Homemade Body Paint Recipe

Make Tortilla Art!

The other day I was staring at some leftover tortillas and a thought suddenly dawned on me.  These lovely flat circles would make great canvases.  So Chuck and I pulled out a couple of items from our kitchen and began painting some colorful edible art!    

Edible Art:  Let's Paint Tortillas!

Make Homemade Body Paint

A couple of days ago my sister came over to visit.  Chuck and I were super excited for her to come.  She also enjoys making things so I wanted to try Paging Fun Mom's homemade body paint with her.  I ended up not following their recipe and just winging it.  It still came out and we had lots of fun painting homemade body paint on ourselves.

Make Homemade Body Paint

 (Note: This post contains affiliate links.  Thanks for your support!)

You just need three ingredients to make this creamy (and very moisturizing) body paint.  Just FYI- it has a completely different consistency then real body paint and it's not meant to stay on.  But that was ok with us.  We ended up painting our pictures, wiping off our artwork, and then painting something else.  Interested?  Let's get making!

Corn Syrup Paint

Are you looking for a paint that's super pigmented and remains glossy looking when it's dry?  Well then this corn syrup paint is for you.  Chuck and I whipped up a batch of this glossy paint the other day in our kitchen.  Then we had loads of fun trying it out.  The paint is edible (although you probably don't want to eat it), has a consistency  thicker than regular paint, and looks like shiny enamel when it dries.  Intrigued?  Check out the results!

Make Glossy Corn Syrup Paint

(This post contains affiliate links. )

Oooooh.  Pretty.  So far we've made homemade sidewalk paint, homemade watercolor paints, and cornstarch toddler paint ... but none of those stand up to the gorgeous results of this homemade corn syrup paint.  The bright colors and gloss are fabulous.   (Yes.  I used the f-word.)  And ready for the best thing?  You could probably whip up a batch of this stuff tonight with ingredients and materials already found at home.  Let's get painting!

3 Ingredient Slime (Borax free!)

Today's craft is going to be a super easy 3 ingredient slime recipe.  I originally found this slime recipe on fellow Rockin Arts Mom  Blog Me Mom 's site.  (She's amazing and her site has tons of other great slime recipes and crafts...so definitely check it out!)  I had to post this recipe here because it's AMAZING!  Erm... just how amazing?  Well, this past week I made 12 batches of slime.  12 batches!  I know, crazy right?  But that's just a testament to how cool this homemade slime recipe is, and how super duper easy it is to make. 

Homemade 3 Ingredient (Borax free) Slime 

 

Yup.  This stuff kept kids aged 2 - 30 something (erm... ok... me) entertained.  And here are the 4 reasons why it's super AWESOME.

1.  It's Borax free.  No scary chemicals lurking here.
2.  It's "edible."  (You could eat it... although I really wouldn't... unless you want to be "regular.") 
3.  You only need 3 ingredients to make it.
4.  You can make it in the microwave.

Excited?  Now let's get started!

Oil and Colored Ice Cube Science

When you were a kid, did you enjoy seeing how oil and water would not mix?  I always thought that was so neat.  (I'll even admit, sometimes even now as an adult, I shake salad dressing bottles at the store just to watch that happen.  Is that weird?)  Eh hem... anyway... a couple of days ago, Chuck and I played around with this phenomenon.  We placed some colored ice cubes into cooking oil and watched them melt.  The results were just really, really beautiful.

Observing colored ice cubes melting in oil

Can science be dreamy?  I hope so, because that's the best word that I can think of to describe what I saw.  Now Chuck didn't appreciate how the colorful bubbles looked like jewels, but he did enjoy swishing and moving the liquids around.  

Keep reading to see how we played with oil and water!