Valentine's Day Marble Painting, with Paper Decorations

Valentine's Day is almost here! Have you decorated yet? I already made my Sweet(heart) welcome sign for the front door, but I wanted to make a second project that I could get my toddler involved in. I still had extra paint left over, so why not use it to make messy art that could be transformed into paper decorations? You might remember our cookie tin marble painting that we did last year for St. Patrick's day. I saved another cookie tin this year, so I decided to give it another go, this time in Valentine's colors.

 

 

We have been having a horrific dry stretch, so this time I decided to take the whole project outdoors in the sunshine. I set up the project on the kid-sized picnic table that we have set up in the backyard and let S-Bug get a little messy! I recommend putting your kids in a smock, or use older play-clothes when painting is involved.

Marble Painting in a Cookie Tin

This week's storm was the perfect way to say goodbye to February and "Hello March!". I'm really hoping March will be significantly wetter than February was, California desperately needs the rain. Since we were indoors because of the rain, I wanted our art activity to get us to move a little, while keeping the mess to a minimum. Looking for supplies and inspiration, I found a leftover cookie tin that my youngest was using as a drum/Frisbee, and though I could put it to good use. I remember doing marble painting from my early school years and how fun it was. Since the cookie tin had a lid, it was perfect for crafting with my toddler, since he could shake it in all directions without paint getting everywhere. It rattled and rolled, we shook and wiggled and giggled, all while making art! I chose green and gold paint for this, as I plan on using this artwork in a St. Patrick's day-inspired craft.

  

My Supplies:

1 leftover cookie tin

Cream-colored paper

Marbles

Green tempera paint

Metallic gold acrylic paint

 

When working with small objects (like marbles) and toddlers, be mindful that these are choking hazards. Please supervise very closely!

 

 

 

I cut my paper to fit inside the cookie tin. The easiest way to do this is to simple trace the tin, and then cut inside your line a bit. That way, it sits nicely inside the tin without being bunched up.

I added 3-4 drops of each paint to the paper. I found that less is more in this activity. Too much paint and the effect was muddled. S watched and I counted aloud as the paint was being dripped.
I added the marbles (again, a good way to teach counting), put on the lid, and let S get to shaking!











All done! Let's open the lid...

Shake, Shake, Wiggle

 

The finished product! These are just few of the ones we did. Since it is such an easy art project, you can do a bunch in a short amount of time. I love how each one looks different, depending on how much or little we shook the tin, what direction the tin got shaken in, and how hard or soft the marbles rolled.

Play with (Paper) Conversation Hearts

 

I hope all of you had a fabulous Valentine's Day. Mine started out with making heart-shaped pancakes for my family, included plenty of fun activities and cookie baking with my boys, and ended with enjoying dinner and dessert with family at my mom's place. S and I had so much fun playing with our paper conversation hearts yesterday! I wish I could have had 3 more hours in a day so I could have written and posted this yesterday, but here it is now.

So cute! Felt stickers from Michael's

I set out a blanket and placed his Valentine's Day box (really an up-cycled tissue box wrapped in red paper and tied with a white curling ribbon bow). I filled the box with the conversation hearts and cute felt stickers that fit the Valentine's Day theme.
At first, he didn't know what to make of them, and gave them a taste, but quickly decided that they were not for eating, unlike their candy counterparts. A few got mangled in the process, good thing I made a bunch! I read the phrases on each heart to him as he pulled them out of the box. He pointed out some letters that he recognizes. At a few weeks shy of two, he recognized and says B, C, D, E, K (well he can't say it yet, but makes the sound) M (pronounced "num" as in m&m's), N, O, and S. This was also an exercise in taking out and putting back in. He soon found that if you turn the box upside down and shake, things fall out quicker.

After we got through a bunch, he decided that they were pretty good for throwing in the air, so he tossed and I gathered them back up. At this point the blanket got tossed to the side, revealing my carpets that desperately need to get replaced (with hardwood, please). As I was looking at the scattered hearts, I got another idea.

 

 

I lined up the hearts in a wavy line, about 4-6 inches apart and asked S to walk along the line. He thought is was so fun stepping from heart to heart. If I was to do this activity again, I would probably tape the hearts down to the carpet to keep them in place. They did get kicked around a bit which meant I was constantly replacing them on our line, but it was still fun, and a good "following directions" lesson. I changed the pattern a few times, making the line straighter and curvier, and even tried a heart, but at that point he was bored with the hearts and moved on to trying to tear the paper off the Valentine's box, and I knew that the activity was over.

 

 

We picked up our mess, putting the hearts in a bag and the felt stickers in another. We didn't actually get to play much with the stickers, so I will put them with my art supplies for next Valentine's Day. The hearts I put with the rest of our sensory materials. Most of them lasted through our play session. I'm hoping to revisit with them another day, as they could be used in more applications, like learning colors, patterns, counting, etc.. In all, I think we were occupied for about 35-40 minutes. For an active boy, that is a good amount of time.

 

The Valentine's box, on the other hand, didn't end up in the best shape, and so we let it retire to the recycling bin.