Foliage Tuesday

This is a fun project to try with your toddler! Just expect paint to get everywhere. In fact, you may want to consider attempting this right before bath time and keeping your little one in a diaper only.

Yay, finger painting! I provided E with fall colors: green, red, yellow, and orange (mixed some red and yellow). She loved it!

Let your little one make all kinds of "smushes" on the sheet using things around the house to stamp. You could even use actual leaves to stamp with, but we used our fingers and paper towels mainly. You can bunch and pinch the paper towel into a leaf shape and hand it to your toddler to dip, or you can just let them do their own thing and, after, sketch leaves into their designs. We did a combination of the two.

E really likes having her own painting, so I let her do her own to keep for herself. Then, I ask her to help me by stamping a few "leaves" in the corner of a greeting card.

I like to use a Sharpie pen to sketch in some details of the leaf after the paint dries, but some of them were clear enough and looked so pretty with no drawn in lines (2nd photo at right). It's completely up to you. Also, her little, red finger prints made sweet, little ladybugs (bottom photo). You can add some stamped- or hand-lettering, too.