Mess-Free Process Art for Toddlers

Today is Day 7 of our 31 Days of Indoor Fun for Toddlers series! Just like yesterday’s cardboard painting, this activity is virtually mess-free. Typically part of the draw of process art is that it is messy and fun…but with my husband out of town most of the week and now a kiddo with strep, a mess-free art activity is just what we I needed. :)

The idea for this Mess-Free Process Art for Toddlers came from my boys’ amazing preschool teacher. She frequently used this technique with the children in her class.

Here’s what you’ll need:

-An empty oatmeal container (I’ve saved mine for quite a while for this very purpose…don’t mind the dust in the photo below). :)

-2 different colors of Washable paint

–Cardstock Paper

-Random objects to shake inside the oatmeal container

My sons’ preschool teacher used either the coarse dish scrubbers or those balls you find inside a protein shake bottle. I didn’t have either of those, so I found some random steel wool and then a bouncy ball (along with 2 ping-pong balls). It doesn’t really matter what you use because it will be inside the oatmeal canister anyway.

1. Gently bend the paper (I used cardstock) and place inside the oatmeal container. An 8 1/2 x 11 piece of paper fits perfectly!

2. Squirt one of your colors of paint into the bottom of the container and then toss in one of your items. Put the lid back on (if you have a little one that likes to take lids off…you might consider taping it).

3. Have your toddler shake the oatmeal container as hard and as fast as he/she can.

This is what the first step turned out looking like…the coarseness of the steel wool picked up the paint really well!

4. Next, put your other item(s) in the oatmeal container along with your second color of paint.

5. Shake, shake, shake some more.

All done! I put in a little bit too much orange paint that ended up collecting on the bottom/side (depending which way it is facing). But the orange streaks going up the paper are from the bouncy ball hitting the walls of the oatmeal container.

If you are using consumable objects to help paint, toss them in the trash/recycling bin (I threw out our steel wool). If not, rinse your objects off and they are ready to be played with in a brand new way (which is what I did with our bouncy ball and ping pong balls).