J-E-L-L-O: Painting with Jello

Mom kind of hates jello, but we had a bunch leftover from Kane's birthday party (mom greatly overestimated how many oranges she could stand to hollow out for the jello boats, which was too bad because they were a big hit) and we've been looking for some different ways to use it up.  When we saw this kool-aid painting, we thought that jello might work well, too.  Although both of us are on a weird ice cube kick right now and mom is getting sick of finding melted pools of water all over the floor (she always forgets to lock the fridge dispenser and Kane is tall enough now to hook us up), she let us have them for this art project.  We sprinkled jello on a watercolor page and "painted" it with ice cubes.  Kane was mostly interested in trying to eat the jello powder -- mom eventually had to take his away from him to avoid overconsumption of the concentrated stuff.  I was slightly more interested in painting, but this wasn't a big winner.  Guess we'll have to find some other uses for our jello -- we might dial up some of these:

- jello sensory tub from No Time For Flashcards 

- jello playdough -- this looks super cool - we just might be tempted to cheat on our favorite playdough recipe for it

- Tinkerlab's jello excavation -- mom thinks we'll save this one up for outside in the summertime

- edible jello aquariums

stealing from mine.

good idea, Kane

Ice Ice Baby: Ice Block Salt Painting

We saw this and had to try it IMMEDIATELY.  Fortunately mom hoards milk containers and other recyclables like Kane hoards toys and we were able to freeze some ice blocks overnight.  Given the increasing likelihood that Kane and I will turn art/craft time into Monday Night Raw and my diminishing afternoon nap (if mom would just let me give up my morning nap, I swear I'd sleep for more than 45 minutes in the afternoon), Kane and I have been able to each have some time alone with mom in the afternoons to do arts/crafts.  I was up first with the ice painting -- I spent a long time carefully spreading salt over the top of the ice block and then licking my fingers each time before going back to the salt bowl.  I eventually worked my fingers cold and picked up the mini squeeze bottles in which mom had mixed up some liquid watercolors.  I didn't spend quite so much time painting, but that is largely due to the fact that by that point I had ingested so much salt that my baby reflux kicked back in and I threw up all over myself (fortunately mom remembered the tell-tale signs and moved my art work out of the way first).  No worries, I went right back to eating my rainbow goldfish (which do come back up rainbow, incidentally) and painted a bit longer.

Kane took a slightly different approach -- he wanted to put salt all over his ice block -- not just on top.  He spent a really long time (for him) doing that and then wanted ALL of the watercolors (big surprise).  He also asked for a spoon after a while to spoon the watercolors pooling in the bottom of the pan back over the top.  All in all, it was the first art/craft project in a while that occupied him for a serious amount of time.  And even as we kept playing throughout the afternoon, we took breaks to check out what our ice blocks were doing.  So, needless to say, we were all fans.

Next time we might try it with food coloring and/or colored sugar -- it kind of looks like a super yummy snowcone.  And we all know I'll eat it anyways.    

Cold As Ice: Ice Cube Painting

Is anyone starting to notice a pattern to our recent activities?  STAYING COOL.  Mom saw these online a while back and we decided to try something similar (these look cool too, but Cami would be even more confused as to why she couldn't eat them).  Mom filled an ice cube tray with warm water and added some tempera paint to each cube (she said using warm water really seemed to help dissolve the tempera paint), popped a 1/2 of a popsicle stick into each one, and froze them overnight.  We took them out of the freezer and let them warm up a bit in a shallow pan of warm water before we starting painting and then we went to town.  Cam took the "I'll try to eat this first and then let it melt on the paper" approach, which actually made for a really pretty painting.  Although it did not make for a very happy Cami.  I took my usual approach -- also known as hoarding followed by scorched earth.  I wanted ALL the colors and then I really liked to scratch up the paper.  Mom and I even worked on one together.  The colored ice really lasted a long time and mom was even able to put most of them back in the freezer when we were done for a second round of painting later on.  It would be fun to do this outside, too.  Although with this DC heat, they probably wouldn't last quite as long!  This is a definite outdoor paint project that's also on our list.

Pre-freeze

Post-freeze.

Collaborative with mommy.

We did some impromptu salt painting, but kept on painting right over it.

I think our biggest takeaway would be to learn when to stop.  This would have been pretty cool to let stay like it was.  But, who are we kidding.

Hoarding.

Cam knows when to say when.

Our collaboration completed.

One of mine.  See, I CAN show a little self-restraint.

Cam's all dried.

Mom's (with a little scratchy help from me).

Mine.

Mom's.