paint prints for Christmas

the boys and I found some time after Thanksgiving to do a little Christmas crafting for their grandmothers.  this holiday season wasn't feeling much like Christmas for me for various reasons, but I really wanted to make these cute penguin prints and I think this project helped get me more in the mood for festivities :)

I picked up a couple of white aprons from Hobby Lobby to decorate.  all the boys had to do was sit still for a black footprint, and I painted the details on after those were dry.  the simple footprints ended up being a lot messier than I remember on past paint projects.  maybe it was the black paint on the white surface... I don't know.  they still came out cute.

we added some fingerprint string lights for a border, which I think really helped finish it off.  this was time consuming, but easier to control than the footprints since we went one finger at a time instead of a whole foot.  I added their names and year as well.

there's still room at the bottoms to add more, so maybe next year we can add some reindeer.

painted tote

the boys helped me paint a canvas tote to give to Nana for Mother's Day.  they loved making it, and it was fun to do with them.  Leo was so cute while we were making the flowers, too.  after each fingerprint he'd say "it's so pretty!"

we did fingerprint flowers and footprint butterflies on one side, and I wrote their names and ages underneath their heels.  I used two paint colors together on each fingerprint to give the flowers more interest, which is easiest to see on the orange/red one in this pic, but it really made the bluebonnets pop.

I wanted to duplicate the same scene on the other side, but the boys ran out of steam so we just did some handprints on the two front pockets surrounded by a few flowers, and I doodled the rest to fill in some.  I really want to make myself one, so maybe I can get around to that before they get too big!

foot frints stool

Leo and Jack helped paint a step stool for my mom for Mother's Day.  they really liked painting, and it wasn't as messy as I thought it might be.

it rained the day I needed to get this done, so I spread out a disposable table cloth left over from a party onto the kitchen floor.  I let Leo do most of the painting because he had more patience for it than Jack did.  they held the brush and I helped dip it into the paint so I could control the amount they were putting on.

we did each color as a layer, so Leo started with a green base coat, switched to a smaller brush and did blue, then Jack did a little purple, and Leo finished it off with some gold.  I did their foot frints (this is how Leo says it right now) and edges in black.

they both loved the foot painting part and they were very cooperative, which I was not expecting, so I think I'll try some other painting projects with them this summer.