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This little Christmas craft project kept the kids entertained for a few painting sessions.
I found myself muttering “process, not product” on a number of occasions and had to remind myself of these tips on how to prevent everything turning khaki green.
And when did the 18 month-old suddenly become such a temperamental artist?
Apparently he is the only one allowed to squeeze paint into the palette. Hell hath no fury like a toddler who is prevented from squeezing the paint from the tube. You’ve been warned.
I grabbed these papier-mache reindeers at my local Spotlight store.
I painted them white before unleashing the kids on them.
My plan was to have the kids apply a layer of colour with different painting tools every few days.
(Always a good idea to apply a layer then let it dry before introducing another colour if your ultimate aim is a non-khaki/ brown final product.)
This was a popular way of applying paint. Watering acrylic paint down slightly in a squeeze-top bottle and then letting the kids squirt the paint all over the reindeers.
Here is the aforementioned temperamental artist who felt it necessary to climb onto the table to straddle his reindeer for optimum painting results.
By the third layer of colour, it became apparent that my 3 year-old’s strategy involved completely covering the reindeer with each new layer of paint, thus negating the whole idea of having multi-coloured layers. So I had to get a bit strategic.
We applied masking tape to create a form of reindeer resist art.
Then once we’d applied all the layers of colour, we peeled off the tape.
And voila!
Reindeers ready to stand sentinel and guide the reindeer traffic in and out of our yard on Christmas Eve.
These papier-mache reindeers were gifted by Spotlight. Thank you!