Art Advent Calendar

Create a To Do List

This project usually takes my kids all day. It's about a continual 30 minutes of work and then off and on for the rest of the day. My examples are from our summer list mostly, but we make one 3 times a year. These are also nice to point bored kids to later on as they are full of fun ideas/activities. Here are the materials you will need:

* Pencils
* Sharpies (Different colors are more fun- you can get a pack of 5 at the dollar tree )
* Paper (I use a 11x14 sheet of water color paper- but you could do this on cardstock too-I recommend thicker paper as you will be covering the whole thing in watercolors)
* Watercolor paints (we use the cake set from the dollar tree)

* Different sized brushes (this isn't needed but larger brushes will make the painting part faster)

* Salt (plain old normal salt)
First start by deciding how you want the overall design to look. For our summer one, the girls wanted flowers, so I drew in pencil large flowers on the paper and then traced them in black sharpie.
Be sure to set some ground rule if you have younger kids or you will get a crazy wildness of impossible things to do as well as a scribble mess. :) I usually tell the kids they have to keep their art and writing inside the large designs I drew.
Next give the kids the sharpies (the tiny ones work well for little ones who like to push hard) and let them go to town writing and drawing pictures of the things they want to do. Don't forget to date your list :)
Once they have filled the space completely, break out the watercolors and paint your list. Here you can use the salt. If you sprinkle a little bit of salt on wet watercolor you will get a frosted effect. Tip: it works best to not apply the paints too thick or it can be hard to see the words underneath.
And Viola, you have a beautiful and functionable piece of art for your house!
Here is our fall/winter to do list after its been painted- the kids didn't follow directions so much on this one.