As you may have guessed I have a problem. I see something that someone else does and think "I can totally do that." Well, it happened again.
Each year our daycare has an "art show" fundraiser. Each child makes 3 pieces of art and you buy them for $5 each. Usually there is one really cute thing and two others that make you question why you are paying $5 for the art your child normally brings home for free. Of course the reason is that you don't want to be the parent that doesn't love their children enough to pay $15 each for their beautiful, unique, brilliant, not at all made by their teacher art projects. So this year after $30 I was on my way home with decorated gift bags, painted sock ornaments, and a framed picture of the kids and a poem. What I was not on the way home with was a potholder with my children's hand prints on it. Another class did those, and I wanted them. Bad. But of course I didn't get upset, I just thought, we can make those.
That was such a nice thought. I mean how hard could it be to get a few plain potholders, some fabric paint, and have your 2 year old twins make cute little hand prints on each of them. Not hard at all. HA! So, as it turns out plain potholders aren't that easy to find. I checked Hobby Lobby, JoAnn's, Wal-Mart (x2), and Target. Now I did find a couple sort of plain light brown ones, but they were super expensive. I wanted these, but I didn't want to spend a lot. So, I bought a package of 4 flour sack towels and thought I would use those. I had also bought some fabric paint the day after Thanksgiving so I was good to go.
Last night (I'm writing this right after the event, but not posting until later as to not ruin the Christmas surprise) was the night. It was just the little people and me and we were going to paint. It was going to be awesome. We were going to make some frameworthy art.
Ok, at this point I should probably mention that sometimes when planning projects I forget (or rather neglect to take into account) that I have 2 toddlers and sometimes there should be a 1 to 1 adult to child ratio. Our first attempt at story time was one of these times. Last night was another. You will notice there aren't any process pictures of this project. That is because to properly document (and yes, probably execute) this project there should have been 2-3 adults. But I am Super Mom! I can do it.
Well, Little Man went first and he wanted geen paint. I took off his shirt (I'm not totally dumb) and laid out the first towel and painted his little hand geen. He was so good, he stamped his hand like a pro. We painted the other hand and down it went. Fabulous...frames, here we come. Then I got the second towel. Down went the hands, stamping away...without more paint or planning. That towel has two geen shadow hands. But that's ok, I learned you have to say "hands way up" when it isn't time to touch the towel. The next two went well. There were a few misprints, but not too bad. there was a lot of washing involved with getting the paint off Little Man, but it all came off. Ok, he had some paint under his nails and his hands had a very pale green tinge, but he was fine.
Now, it was Little Princess's turn. She wanted wed hands. We repeated the process with lots of "Hands up high!" instructions. Again, a few misprints, but not all bad. The problem with Princess is that I had to get her from the table to the sink to wash her hands. Usually not a problem I would just pick her up and tell her not to touch me and over to the chair by the sink we would go. There was a slight hiccup this time. Little Man kept climbing on the chair when I was trying to put his sister down or wash her hands. This is when I think it would be helpful to have an extra pair of arms. It might be difficult to find shirts, but I bet I could make one.
Finally, all the towels were done and hands were washed. The only thing this could mean is that it is time to run around like a crazy person with your shirt off. I decided that this wasn't the activity for me and cleaned up my mess while they ran around...and around...and around.
The towels were cute, but they were missing something...Big Brother's hands. Luckily after he came home from wrestling practice and ate his dinner he was willing to humor me and let me stamp his hands on the towels. He choose yellow. While it was much easier to stamp his hands it sure did take a lot more paint.
I finished the towels off by adding the kids' names and the year.
Here we have the final Helping Hands Towels
Are they super perfect and suitable for framing-no. Are they super cute keepsakes-yep. My kids are often splotchy and smudged so it just makes sense that their art work would be too.
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