Fun paint tips:
To make your paint dry shiny add a bit of corn syrup to your tempera or fingerpaint. Fun, but sttttticky!!!
Another tip: add a drop of dish soap to increase washability. Watch for paint in the mouth on this one, although it is non toxic soap causes a bellyache.
Also, you can fingerpaint with shaving cream/food coloring (careful, this will stain but it is non-toxic. Better for older babies/toddlers because sometimes shaving cream can irritate the eye).
Super cool foam paint: shaving cream plus white elmers glue! Dries poofy!
Window clinging paint, if you are brave enough to let your little one paint the window (I love doing this, it's so cute): Mix elmer's glue and tempera paint or add food coloring to Elmer's glue. Easy to scrape or wash off. For easier washing try vinegar water.
Also, try kool-aid and pudding! Totally edible, great for young babies (that can have a bit of dairy ofcourse--only the amount that they can lick off their fingers). Careful though, it will stain whites.
PAPER PLATE FISH MOBILE
All you really need to get started is paper plates (I used small ones but it doesn't matter), scissors, glue, paint and glitter, some string, and something to hang with. In the past I've used dowels and sticks shaped in a cross formation to hang mobiles, but I kept this project super simple by just attaching it instead to a child's coat hanger.
Start by keeping 2-3 plates whole (how ever many fish you want to hang) and then cutting tails by simply cutting paper plates in half. I tape the plates down to Emmett's highchair so he can fingerpaint them more easily. Also, I wanted my fishies to have open mouths, so I cute triangles out where their mouths would be as well.
Today, I mixed my tempera paint with glue for two reasons: 1) I wanted it to dry more shiny 2) I wanted to shake on glitter after Emmett had painted them. Also, it made it easier to clean off the highchair when we were done!
Once we were done painting the plates, I shook glitter on them, hole punched the top of the body so I could run string through them, and glued on button eyes. You could use googly eyes, or just draw them on, or you could skip the eyes alltogether and it would still look great! Because I have used buttons for the eyes on the fish I will make sure to keep a close eye on them, and keep them out of Em's reach, in case they should fall off and be a choking hazard!
So, once they were dry and I had glued the tails and eyes on, I just strung them up with sewing thread and tied them on to a child's coat hanger! Voila! The glitter catches in the sun and it looks so darling. Emmett is really mesmerized by it!
