I can't remember where I saw it but I saw someone do painting by mixing shaving cream and food colouring. I was a bit worried that food colouring would stain Blondie Boy's hands and my bathroom so I use washable paint for our shaving cream paint instead. I used a muffin tin as a palette which worked really well; you won't need as much shaving cream as you think as it will expand and poof up as you mix the paint in with it.
I tend to do all painting and other messy play activities in the bathroom for easier clean-up but in this case Blondie Boy used the tub as his canvas, too. We started out with some paper but he had more fun painting the tiles which was fine with me.
I told him he could paint anything he wanted except his hair. Guess what he did 2.5 seconds after I said that. Not a big deal really, just meant I had to wash his hair.
He had a great time making hand-prints on the wall and writing his name (it wasn't legible but he said the correct letters so it counts) and kept telling me how much fun he was having and how the shaving cream paint felt like ketchup. The only downside was that the tub got VERY slippy the more covered in paint he got so eventually we had to end so he didn't get hurt. I think he could have spent the rest of the evening painting if he hand't been slipping and sliding all over.
Clean up was as easy as spraying down the tub so can't complain there. We'll definitely be doing this one again since it was cheap, easy and fun. Do you have a favourite easy and cheap activity you like to do with toddlers?
