Spin Art Valentines

So easy, a 12 month old can do it!

I don't know about other moms out there, but I can not wait for Sal to be old enough to enjoy "projects". I have failed at tried a few age appropriate ideas off pinterest and my little guy either had no interest what-so-ever, or the "mess free" chinese ziploc wanna be  Ziploc baggie full of paint leaked all over the place, looking like a rainbow threw up on my floor/baby/highchair/clothes.

Anyways, I saw an idea for spin art with toddlers. Sal loves to play with our salad spinner while I am in the kitchen, so I knew he had the motor skills and coordination for this one. With Valentines day around the corner, and no Hallmark stores or scrapbooking supplies in sight, I decided we would try and make our own spin art hearts.

I had some left over cardstock that my sister had mailed me ( for Sal's Birthday bunting banner), so I cut out some 3" hearts. The only paints I have are chinese poster paints with a really thick  consistency. I picked out three "boy" colors ( Oh, I know, I'm feeding into societal norms), and diluted the paints with a bit of water so that they could be dropped from an old dropper I had on hand.

I let Sal pick up each heart and instructed him to put it in his spinner. He is really good with one step instructions these days. I then sucked up a little paint into the dropper and gave it to him, showing him how to squeeze paint out onto his heart. I put the lid onto the spinner and just let him go to town spinning the handle round and round.

We continued this method for each heart, and amazingly enough, the kid had a long enough attention span to make eight Valentines.

Not too bad for an almost-13-month-old.

And, best part of it for me?

Mess free.