Search Results for: blog painting your child

How to Make Your Own Facepaint!

Forget the expensive and possibly toxic store bought face paint. You can make a rainbow of colors with homemade face paint for a fraction of the cost. Customize the facepaint for just your own trick or treaters, or create enough face paint for a party or a Halloween event. Ingredients: 1 tsp. cornstarch, 
1/2 tsp. water, 
1/2 tsp. cold cream, 
2 drops food coloring Repeat ingredients for each color of the homemade face paint that you need. The face paint goes a long way, but for multiple children, increase the recipe to make sure you have enough to go around. … Continue reading →

Are you making your kids weird?

Are you making your kids weird? I know I am. I love to travel. All year, I save so that I can go on wonderful trips. I’m not a big spender on things, but I love to spend on experiences. My daughter likes to travel too, and I enjoy taking her with me. We get to have adventures together, and they’re very educational of course. We’ve learned about the tropical rainforest by going there and walking through it. Most recently, we’ve explored great European works of art (and yes, ice cream and lots of carousels) by traveling through Italy and … Continue reading →

Super Cool Birthday Party Ideas for Your 5 Year Old, Part 2

Dress-Up or Makeover Party: Would a pink festival of femininity capture your little fashionista’s heart? Girls can put on their best dress up clothes and head over to hair and make up for a complete transformation. Your hair and make up area can include painting nails, applying lip gloss and simple hair styles. Makeovers do not have to be extravagant. I find keeping it simple is best. You can suggest the girls arrive in their dress up clothes or provide an array of clothing for them. Roll out red bulletin board paper or a red bed sheet if you want … Continue reading →

Chill Out: Ice Cube Painting

Ah, winter. Around here the sodden, soggy weather is punctuated with the occassional chilly day when we look up to the mountains and relish the sight of some snow. But really, in the Pacific Northwest winter can be hard to find. I do like to celebrate it anyway, so this coming week I’ll be doing an educational program for local children. It focuses on snow, ice, frost and hail – all of which are notably absent from our landscape at the moment! Whether you have 2 foot long icicles hanging outside your window or you are basking in the glow … Continue reading →

Get Your Gobble On

Is there anything cuter than dressing up your little piggy as a turkey? When my daughter was a baby she really didn’t need to don a butterball costume to get into the holiday spirit. She could just show up to dinner with a few smears of gravy on her chubby cheeks and guests would know exactly which Thanksgiving dish she was masquerading as. Whether you want your child to sport a Tom the Bird getup to spice up your Thanksgiving dinner, your little guy just landed a starring role in his school’s Turkey Day play, or you just want him … Continue reading →

The Painting II

Earlier I talked about the amazing painting my wife created for the kids’ room. It was an abstracted guitar in honor of our son’s fascination with that instrument in particular. The next time she painted our son was by her side painting with her, the two of them side by side. After that painting lesson with his mother our son got recognizably “better” at drawing. He intended to making certain marks on the page, in certain colors, in certain places. That whole situation taught me how much children learn from their parents. The things that are demonstrated to us as … Continue reading →

The Little Painting Boy

Last time I talked about my wife creating a wonderful painting for our son’s room (and it really is wonderful). It was a painting of a guitar and our son really enjoyed it. He’s always been a fan of music. Both Mom and Dad have a love for the arts. We’ve both dabbled in each of them more than a little, and I’ve gone through lots of schooling in the arts (theatre in particular). We play guitar and piano and tin whistle while grandpa plays drums. The one thing our son hadn’t yet gotten into was painting. Mom made sure … Continue reading →

The Painting

Sometimes you get inspired. It can happen at any moment for any reason (conscious or not), and when the inspiration strikes you’d better get to work, or at least have a notebook handy to write down and record what particularly inspired you. I’m not sure our little son has experienced anything (at least outwardly) that we might recognize as “inspiration,” but it does seem that he gets hooked on an idea about something to try (maybe climbing something really high up and jumping) and he does his best to make it happen at that very moment. Mom did get inspired … Continue reading →

Preserving Your Child’s Art With Your Camera

Oprah is a huge fan of parents photographing their children’s hand-drawn works of art and creating a picture book courtesy of online photo editing services. I am with the Great O in regards to the book idea rather than having millions of drawings cluttering the front of the refrigerator. However, it helps to know how to properly photograph artwork if you want to craft a decent-looking book. The number one consideration when photographing art is lighting. Without proper lighting there is no way you can preserve any of the drawing’s details. This is true regardless of whether or not you … Continue reading →

Preserving Your Children’s Artwork

I get some of my best ideas from Oprah Winfrey. In this case, I got the shard of brilliance from a guest on Oprah’s show who was hawking photo books. Still, the idea is phenomenal, so I happily ran with it. Taking pictures of your child’s masterpieces and placing them in a photo book is not a new idea, nor does it require the brain of a surgeon. However, you do need to practice some basic photography techniques in order to snap a shot that is book worthy. The best way to photograph pictures drawn on construction paper or other … Continue reading →