Scratch-n-Sniff Painting with the Small Fries

I discovered this idea over 3 years ago in the now-defunct Wondertime magazine.

I did what I always do when I see something I like - I cut it out. I put it in a pile. And I forgot about it.

Kinda like "Set it and forget it!", only not as productive.

As luck would have it, I recently unearthed this treasure, and just in the Old Man Winter nick of time.

It's a cheap project. If you already have watercolor paper, you're golden. If you don't have it, or if you have it but you don't know that you have it (like me), just clip the 40% off coupon for Hobby Lobby or Michaels and go grab some.

The only other thing you need is several packs of unsweetened Kool-Aid.

Mix each packet of Kool-Aid in a paper cup, along with 2 T of water.


Your kids will beg you to tell them what you are doing, but don't. It's more fun that way. And there's nothing pre-schoolers love more than being kept out-of-the-loop.

Next, assemble your still life.
As you can imagine, this was one of my favorite parts.

I drew a rough sketch of the bowl on each piece of paper, using a black Sharpie (you'll want to use permanent marker for this). Then we each drew the blue lines on our bowl.

Next, we set to work drawing. Some of us used more artistic license than others.

Calvin had an 11th-hour inspiration and added the snowflakes which still hang over our table.

He was so excited to have free reign with his "own" Sharpie that we could have stopped right here.

But that would have been a shame, because the paint is the whole point.

(How do babies get this cute? Well, that's another discussion for another day.)

The whole idea is to correspond the flavors to the actual fruit, but we threw caution to the wind and painted our red apples with cherry "paint" and our green apples with "lime".

*Gratuitous Fruit Shot*

We shared words about Calvin's propensity to take his paint right out to the edge. He's a regular Picasso with a hearty shake of Bob Ross mixed in. (Notice the pomegranate down in the "bottom" of his bowl...)

Ruby took the more literal route. Did me proud.

Voila! Scratch-n-Sniff art.

I'll be honest - this was fun, even for me. It kept the kids busy for nearly an hour and lightened up this crabby day.

Not ready to hang up our brushes, we went two bonus rounds. Then on to:
*dinner prep
* Thomas the Train
* bedroom time-outs, all around, 'til Daddy got home.

If only every hour were scratch-n-sniff painting hour.

But hey, at least we have the memories.


**I'm linking this up to DIY Day at A Soft Place to Land and Metamorphosis Monday at Between Naps on the Porch.