How are things in your world?
Over here in the Creative Day household, I’ve been trying to teach my toddler alla the Big Life Lessons.
Like the importance of replacing the lids on her markers.
We recently cleaned out the colouring tub which resembled a Marker Graveyard.
Did you know you can reuse old markers by bringing them back to life as watercolour “paint.”

How to make watercolour paint by reusing old markers

To create watercolour “paint,” simply soak your dried up markers in water.
I used old water bottles which was also a useful storage method.
Pop your dried up markers in the bottle, add water and let them soak.
The more water, the less vibrant your colours.
The longer you let the markers soak, the more vibrant the colour.

Once your paints are ready to go, here are 6 simple ideas for how to use them.

Fizzy Fun with Baking Soda and Vinegar

Anything involving an ink dropper is a sure hit round here.
In this activity, fill a tray with baking soda.
Mix the watercolours with vinegar.
The toddler worked on her fine motor skills drawing the liquid into the ink dropper and dropping it onto the baking soda.
Lots of fizzy fun.
This activity lasted 40 minutes. Which is basically 7 Light Years in Toddler Time.

Ink Dropper Splatters

Using the ink dropper and watercolour paper, you can create splatter art.
You could of course use your paint with a paintbrush.
Or you could also put your watercolours in a spray bottle, tape some watercolour paper to the fence and let the kids create some spray art in the backyard.

Watercolour and Oil

Drop watercolours onto watercolour paper.
Then drop oil onto the watercolour to see how they react.
Little Miss then experimented with dropping watercolour into the oil well.

And created her own masterpiece.

Glue, salt and watercolour

Create a design using craft glue.
Sprinkle salt over the glue. Shake off any excess salt.
Use your ink dropper (again) to drip watercolour onto the salt and watch how the watercolour runs. Mesmerising to watch.

Salt on watercolour

You could also coat your paper in watercolour and then sprinkle salt over the top of it. (You need a nice, liberal coat of watercolour.)
Once the salt has absorbed the excess watercolour, shake off your artwork and the salt will have created a pretty, textured effect.

Watercolour and Cling Wrap

Coat your watercolour paper in watercolour. Cover the paper in cling wrap and watch the rivulets of watercolour form. Leave to dry overnight.
When you remove the cling wrap, your painting will have a gentle, rippled look.

The irony is that we had so much fun with these projects, I kinda hope that the toddler leaves the lids off the markers so we can do it all again sometime.

Make some paper towel snowflakes with your watercolours made from old markers!