“I’m bored.” “There’s nothing to do.” How many times have you heard these phrases in your parenting journey? I know I have personally heard it hundreds of times, and finding something creative to do with the kids is not always easy. More importantly, finding something that doesn’t make a mess throughout your entire house is a challenge. When kids are free to be outdoors and creative, they will have a blast, and you, as mom, will enjoy the mess free indoors. These ideas for outdoor bubble art will keep them happy and the house mess free.

We are free to be creative outdoors. I decided since Jack-Jack loves to play with water and he loves painting, I was going to merge the two of these activities.

Our first outdoor creation involved water guns and watercolors. I purchased inexpensive squirt guns, and I filled them with a mixture of washable liquid paint mixed with equal parts of water. You can also use tempera paint or liquid watercolors.

I set up an easel with watercolor paper. I handed each child a water gun filled with different colors. They were on either side of the easel. Caution your children to not point these water guns at each other during this activity. 

INGREDIENTS: I mixed tempera paint in with water for the first activity thinning it enough so it flows freely through the water gun.

Things were going quite well until my two sons decided to have a water gun fight. I ducked into the house to escape the mess and they continued to fill their guns. Our projects didn’t turn out quite like expected, but fun memories were created!

Jack-Jack asked to do bubbles, so I mixed washable paint in with bubble solution. We made pictures blowing bubbles through a wand.

I set up the watercolor bubble paints right on the easel. They look pretty, don’t they?

BLOWING THROW A STRAW TO CREATE BUBBLE ART:

I took the same solution and we blew bubbles through a straw. We tried different techniques. We placed the cup of bubble solution on the paper and blew bubbles. We blew bubbles in the solution and placed the paper onto the bubbles until they popped. I even held the cup over the paper and let Jack-Jack blow bubbles until they spilled over onto the paper.

We used a straw and flicked watercolor onto the paper. We did this with the paper on the easel. Notice how the solution runs down the paper creating a different effect.

 

Jack-Jack tossed watercolor filled water balloons at the easel. I filled the balloons with tempera paint mixed with water. I used an empty water bottle with a squirt type lid to fill the balloons. It is messy and time consuming.

The object was to hit the paper. This helped him to improve his aim, but anytime he hit the paper, the balloon bounced and rolled on the ground. He doesn’t throw hard enough to actually break the balloon with his throw.

He then dropped the watercolor bubble solution on a sheet of paper and blew threw the straw. This created a very cool effect. For one picture we even made a Mickey head. I cut out circles from label paper to apply before painting. It came out so cute that we decided to paint another one. I will frame both the white Mickey head and the black Mickey head and hang them in their bathroom.

We all came in a little messy. 

create some summertime memories. IAnd make sure to drop me a line and show me your summertime creations! I would love to hear from you.