My Little Artist

My girl has an artistic nature about her. She loves to color and draw, both on paper and the magna doodle. So I bought a pack of washable Crayola paints and let her try her hand at fingerpainting. My husband looked at me like I was crazy when I told him I was going to do it (totally justified), but I wanted a new activity for her. Doing the same old things day in and day out is going to get boring to her at some point. And even though she's young, I want to help her explore her interests.

So I put her in one of Nick's old shirts and let her have at it.

It was fun.

She made a huge mess.

And she was totally into it until she realized that her hands were dirty.

And then it was game over.

Total meltdown.

So I cleaned her up and we went and found a paintbrush.

All was right with the world again.

Until this happened:

The finished masterpiece (I have no idea why blogger is flipping this vertical)

Despite the "Ohmygoshmyhandsaredirty" meltdown and licking paint off her hands, it was a fun experience. She's done one more painting since this one and I was smart enough to give her a paintbrush from the start (and she didn't eat paint this time, either). Both were done on thin canvases that I bought for cheap at Michaels, but I think we're going to buy her a sketchbook-type thing so we can keep all of her paintings together in one place.

Any suggestions for other fun activities to do with an almost 15 month old?