Home-made artwork

Ever since we've started talking about re-doing Bubbles' room, I've been dreaming up all sorts of ideas to prettify it. Needless to say, we don't want to spend a lot of money, and need to have the room done up to allow for convenient changes as she grows.

I have always liked the idea of framing up a child's own artwork to be displayed. I think it is a lovely personal touch, and will be something special that the child can relate to, and feel proud of. However, Bubbles, brush/finger/pen-manship still results in random squiggles and splotches, and she almost always gets distracted halfway through painting sessions to enjoy the texture of paints (think using different objects to splosh the paints around, watching paints sock onto her diaper, squeezing colours in-between her fingers and toes etc).

So, during one of her naps last week, I decided to prep some items to be included into her before-bath painting time. I cut up red and orange paper into flower shapes like this:

This is what we did:
Instead of painting on white paper, I gave her a cheery yellow sheet. With her fingers, brushes and a sponge, she made her usual blops on the paper with fingerpaints (they tend to end up rather translucent when spread thin).

Halfway through, I handed her the paper flowers to 'stick' onto the paper. The flowers stuck easily onto the wet paint. I let her place them on whichever way she wanted, sticking some on myself according to her directions (here, Mummy!).

We then continued to blotch the paper with paints, further cementing the flowers.

When she got bored and started the usual painting of her toes and other body parts, I finished up the piece by filling up any 'gaps' in the same blotchy style.

This was the result:

I found a frame in my new-frames collection (yes, don't ask),

and this is how our very own artwork looks like now:

We're both very happy with this! Bubbles announces to her Daddy that this was done "by Mummy and Bubbles". It may not be the most beautiful of art, but it is very special :)

If you do try this as well, do share your version! It will be so fun to see all the variations of this!