The First Art Project

At 5 and a half months Baby B did his first art project - super cute, super easy Valentines cards. We made cards for daddy and B's best friends, and we're going to use the same idea to make Easter cards for the grandparents. They look really effective and didn't make too much mess - win!

First you need to set up. Use a large, flat plastic box. Place a piece of paper in the box so it covers the bottom and folds up the sides. Use a few blobs of Blu-tac to keep it in place. Then put a few dollops of different colour paint rounds the edges. Choose your colours depending on the theme of card you want to make. Then chuck in 3 golf balls. (I used practice balls because they were cheaper but they weren't really heavy enough and don't wipe clean so I'd use proper ones next time.)

Put the lid on, secure with an elastic band and give to baby. As they shake it the golf balls spread the colours around. B mostly chucked it on the floor but it still worked. He had fun doing it, even if he wasn't quite sure what he was doing. He enjoyed looking inside the box when we took the lid off so we did it 3 times.

The glitter paint seemed like a good idea but it's a very odd consistency and didn't really spread so stick to poster paint.

Take the paper out and leave to dry. Cut out relevant shapes.

I wrote a message in the card and helped B make a paint fingerprint to sign it.

Then stick your shape to the front of the card and there you go - baby's first art project. Easy!

Kit List:

• large, flat plastic box with secure lid
• elastic band
• white paper
• blu-tac
• at least 3x poster paint
• 3x golf balls
• folded card
• baby