Eleanor's First Craft

Last week I realized that Eleanor was definitely old enough to start her painting career so we headed to Michael's together to pick out some non-toxic, washable paint and cardstock.

I had the idea to send out Valentines to Eleanor's love interest(s) so the night before our painting session I addressed all the envelopes, cut and folded the cardstock and then wrote her Valentine message inside (she had previously whispered her desired Valentine's message to me, of course).

While she ate lunch the next day, I set up our working station and put the camera on self timer (this sort of thing has to be documented) to see the magic unfold.  

I found it was most successful to put the dab of paint right onto the card, which then enticed her to smear it all around.  Of course, she lost interest in smearing about four cards in, so we had to change it up with handprints and footprints here and there.  

At the end of the whole experience I noticed the tiniest paint dot on her nose, which made my heart melt and inspired a whole different photo session.  My poor one-day second child is going to wonder why their first craft wasn't documented so thoroughly--sorry future babes!

All in all it was a success.  I may have been a little over ambitious thinking Eleanor would really be interested in making so many cards (maybe next time we will stick to like four for a first go of things) but we made it through and it was a fantastic way to spend the afternoon.  

And now that her painting career has started, life just got a whole lot more fun.  Let the wall galleries of children's art begin!

P.S. Some of Eleanor's paint globs were pretty thick so the cards needed an extra day to dry.  I was still hoping that mailing them on Wednesday would get them to everyone by Valentine's on Saturday but sadly I don't think they did for most!  Next year we will start painting earlier :)