Paint Rollers

Whoo whoo!  I have proven that having a master's degree in engineering does not fully prepare you to edit a blog.  But Here I Am!  Logged in and ready to share some crafting ideas.

Here is a project that my daughter thought up all by her lonesome while we were painting. 

She put a whole bunch of blobs of paint on a paper towel tube and rolled it across a blank piece of paper, making the lovelyiest little blotchy picture she's ever created.

Age:  1-100

Time:  5-20 minutes plus water fun during cleanup

Mess/Cleanup:  It's messy.  Trick your kid into cleaning up

What You Need:

Paint

Brushes

Cardboard paper towel and/or toilet paper rolls

Paper

Mom or Dad`s t-shirt to use as a painting smock

Substitutions:  Why I Like This Craft:

I had absolutely NOTHING to do with her creative process.  She put on every dab of paint, came up with the idea to roll it, and did all the rolling without my hands touching a thing.  It still looked good after re-rolling several times, too.  Most of our cutest crafts to date have involved a lot of directing and helping from me, but I love how this looks and all I did was provide the cups of paint :) 

She even said `this makes me so happy I want to cry` - which was all the more shocking because it is a phrase I have never used in front of her.  We were both pretty darned happy and excited.

 

Materials

Note:  Construction paper would work but make sure you hang it up to dry on a non-porous surface.  Daughter made one really wet, goopy free-hand painting on magenta construction paper and let it `dry` on the Formica counter.  I discovered the lovely magenta stain on the counter a few hours later  and got lightheaded from the fumes from the cleaner I used to soak out the stain. 

Now dab some paint on the cardboard tube of your liking.

Now roll! Roll!  ROLL!!!

Keep rolling!  It just gets better and better. 

This project is pre-schooler friendly.



Note the soggy, crushed tube being squeezed by the excited three year old above is still performing but is heading to the trash pretty soon. 

 Warning:  the cardboard eventually gets soggy and starts to collapse and disintegrate.  Keep a few spares on hand if you want this activity to last a while. 


Finished product:

Now drag your little paint-covered monkey to the sink and let her make "chocolate milk" with all of the messy paint cups.



"Chocolate milk" in lower left corner



--Nancy

• Add glitter while the paint is still wet, or if you don't want glitter scattered over every square inch of your house, use glitter glue or glitter paint
• Rose did this craft a long time ago using a golf ball
• Choose seasonal color schemes and add a picture on top using stickers, fun foam, felt, etc
• Use as wrapping paper
• Use as the background for a card