Corn Syrup Paint

This week we tried a new-to-us art project: corn syrup paint.

We got this idea from one of my favorite kids' art books, MaryAnn Kohl's First Art : Art Experiences for Toddlers and Twos:
:


At this point I have neither a toddler nor a two, but no matter--there are still tons of great ideas in here that my kids enjoy, and this book comes highly recommended by yours truly.  


This is a super simple but really unique painting experience.  Here's what you need:



**corn syrup (not sure why ours is "light," but we weren't eating it anyway. I don't know if that impacted the paint)
**food coloring
**jars


That's it!  It's really pretty self-explanatory.  Pour some corn syrup into a jar, add some food coloring, and mix.  We just made the three primary colors, both for simplicity's sake and to encourage creative color mixing.


I planned to offer this activity repeatedly throughout the week (which I did), so we made quite a bit, but when the girls sat down to paint, I just poured out a smaller amount for them to use (into containers that were a store display for individually-wrapped candies in a previous life):

The final product looks super cool. It's dries thick, shiny, and smooth:

The corn syrup is a lot of fun to work with, and it presents a manageable challenge to little ones--it's very thick and becomes even thicker as it starts to dry while you're painting, so it's great for exercising those hand muscles.


Since we worked with this all week, we came up with some fun variations. The corn syrup looks really cool painted onto an image drawn with just a black outline (in this case a mandala Ninna made with the Mandala Designer my parents gave the girls for Christmas.) And because we we have to, always, we tried adding glitter as well--also very cool looking.

New Post at Simple Kids

I have a new post up at Simple Kids today on one of our favorite family activities--cooking together.   I hope you enjoy it!

PS This photo is from when the chickadees were one and three.  Look how little they are!

Preparations

The weekend included some mass production:

Old school Montreal radiators serve many purposes, one of which is drying glitter glue:

Cards have been signed, treats have been made, and dinner has been planned (including the chocolate fondue dessert.)  And now it's time for mama to go to bed.

Happy Valentine's Day!

Winter, on a Good Day

On a good day, there are snow angels:

There is sliding down snowbanks on one's bum:

And climbing to mountaintops with one's sister:

But note the conspicuous lack of mittens on Bojey in the last photo, my friends.  We're still working on this, with some days more successful than others.  And, mittens or no mittens, this poor darling really does not want to be outside in the cold.  And herein lies the perfect example of the selective shots we see of people's lives in blog posts.  Within three minutes after I took this photo, Bojey was completely melting down about how she wanted to be at home which was, of course two long city blocks away, hard to traverse with a big snowsuit-clad three and a half year old hanging from your leg.  


Poor thing did, eventually, cheer up, after spending some time in the one place she'd prefer to be at all times--home!

A Quick Note on a New Blog Feature

Happy Sunday!


I just wanted to alert you to a new little blog feature.  On the right-hand column, below the "Followers" section, are the words "Recent Sources of Inspiration."  I've wanted to do one of these for ages and have finally put it up.  I've just got a couple of links there now (one of which is from my blog friend Rachel's site, 6512 and Growing, one of the best blogs I've read!)  I see so many cool things online that excite me that I want to share with you, and I always find great things on other bloggers' link lists, so...there it is!  I'll update it as I find cool stuff.


Have a great start to your week,


Jaimie

Toothpicks and Playdough

In December, I considered the possible silliness of yet another playdough post and wondered how many times a self-respecting 35 year old could talk about playdough.  Well, the answer is apparently "many," because I'm back again with more!


A little while ago, I came across this pin on Pinterest and decided to sit down on the floor with some playdough and toothpicks, and as expected, the two chickadees dropped what they were doing and were seated with their own playdough blobs within 45 seconds.  We had a great time with this.

We tried to see how many toothpicks we could poke into one playdough ball:

Quite a few.

Ninna engineered this bridge, designed, as she informed me, so that mice could walk across the toilet--because, you know, they really do need a way across:




I love this shot because I know the day will come when I'll no longer see the chaos of playdough or those feet still so tiny.  The toes!

May your weekend be filled with playdough and baby feet, or whatever else it is that makes your heart tingle.