Merry and Bright Art; Day 10
It is funny how having kiddos around changes a holiday as we have seen it all our lives. Before if I didn’t want to decorate, I didn’t, or I did whatever pleased me the most. But with kids, the holidays become less selfish and more selfless… or at least for me. I want to do things for them to create great memories!
So for example, this year, I didn’t really want to put up a big tree!! My daughter however, started talking about it, and was so excited for our “Big Tree!”! Well, Christmas isn’t for me anymore, it is for them, so up the tree went… if you noticed yesterdays’ post I literally still haven’t decorated it, but WE will! And it may not be the perfect blogger decorated tree, because my girls want to help SO badly, and I am okay with that, we’ll make memories and not perfectly decorated trees.
Since I have been SO busy working on these 12 days of Christmas projects I’ve been trying to keep my kids involved wherever I can. Lately, painting has been all the rage at our house. So we had them do some painting with us in bright acrylic colors and watercolor… Then we decided framed it and make a quick art gallery.
This isn’t all that traditionally Christmas, and we used a variety of colors so, I think I might keep it up for a few months at least. Most of all though, t was really fun to do, and the girls noticed especially my 2 year old, that her paintings were on the wall, and that made me happy!
The only real work involved was painting the frames and hanging the art, the rest was just family fun! (Oh and I did a Merry and Bright art project last year, that they also got to help with so check out that option too!)
Kid’s Art Gallery
Fun for Christmas!
Supplies:
Paper
Paint (acrylic or watercolor)
Paper towels
Brushes
Picture Frames
Instructions:
Have a fun family painting night. If you want it to have a holiday theme you can ask them to paint specific things, or list off a few ideas for them to try out. Snowflakes would be a fun option and everyone’s would be different just like individual snowflakes!
*Tip* If using watercolor, try pouring some table salt onto the drying paint, it will create and awesome effect on the paint and looks fabulous!
Allow the painting to dry completely
Frame the art
I might suggest using frames that are slightly smaller than the pages you are painting, so that you can trim and align them how you like, which may help with the balanced overall look of the gallery, without taking away from the kid’s art.
I found some frames at Walmart, for $4.00 each. But they were not the gold color I wanted, so I just grabbed some metallic gold crafter’s acrylic paint and a foam brush and very imperfectly painted them with one coat, so that the original finish still shows through, but the overall color is gold.
We hung them on the wall: Wall-La! Get it… wall. Okay I tried. Done!
These would make great gifts too!
Remember to check out the other great days!!
And these other great projects from my lovely friends:
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Very cute idea for the artwork and I am sure your girls are so proud when they walk by. When I was little, many years ago, my mom was very particular about her tree. Well, my mom bought 2 four foot artificial trees, one for my brother and one for me. These trees were in our room and we could decorate them any way we wanted. This tradition I carried down to my daughters, the youngest 2 are twins, 19 years old tomorrow. They have six foot white ones with the most beautiful decorations. One of the best parts of these trees, each year as they were growing up they would get an ornament or two or three as Christmas presents to add to their tree. This started them a very nice collection of ornaments for their own homes someday. Sorry to long winded, just thought an idea for you and your daughters. Merry Christmas and you are right, it is for the kids.
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Great comment. That sounds like a fun tradition. Merry Christmas!
My boys just painted pictures last night for our elf on the shelf to take back to the north pole (with a wish list on the back of course). It was so much fun. I love that your girls want to help you decorate the tree. My boys don’t want any part of it!
What fun for the kiddos! I love how you hung them in frames 🙂
I LOVE the yellow clock! What’s the story? Did you buy or make it?
I love the gold paint too. I may have to locate some of that–only in a silvery-gold shade to better match what I have going on.
Thanks!
I made the yellow clock. You can see the instructions here. I am glad that you love it.