Get Crafty: Fun with Canvas

 After all our holiday traveling across the country to Cali, back east and to upstate NY, a low-key weekend was just what we needed! After a trip to the library to stock up on some new books, H said the only other thing she wanted to do was paint. So on Sunday we headed to Michaels where they are having a sale on canvases – buy a value 2-pack of canvases and get another 2-pack for free!

This time we picked up some 8x10 canvases because I wanted to try this little project that I had seen on Pinterest. I had an 8x10 picture I had taken of H with 2 of her cousins (and our dog Ella) over the summer that I thought would be perfect for this project. I had also picked up a small square canvas for a print of a hipstomatic picture I had taken of H and had a print of, as well as a copy of a magazine cover my grandmother had posed for.  This is how they turned out (I apologize for the dimness - my camera battery was dead so all these where taken with my phone):

I think they’re pretty cute! You can find the instructions here. While I was working on my picture projects, H was discovering the joy of “making” the color purple with red and blue. Once she finished with her canvas, she started on her arms, so we headed upstairs to take a bath while her canvas dried. When we came back downstairs, we added a layer of purple glitter paint that H had picked out at the craft store, and then used Mod Podge and scrapbook paper to add a butterfly and some stripes to the edges of her painting.

We put them all up on the mantel in the playroom, which had been looking woefully bare with all the Christmas decorations gone!

The small square one is sitting on H's "present from the Christmas tree"!

I’ve posted before about how great I think canvas is for toddler art. These little 8x10s are great for painting and you can let your little one be as creative as they want to be – finger paint or use brushes and sponges, add some paper scraps or foam shapes, and then you can decorate with these little works of art!