Fun and Cheap Art Project for a Toddler

I LOVE art and I love nourishing my daughter’s love for art! That’s the reason I made a Masterpiece Wall for all of Cupcakes’ artwork. I’m always looking for fun projects that she and I can do together. When she does anything creative, I like to give her tons of encouragement and whenever possible, display the creations proudly. That’s why I loved this idea that I came up with. I hope you like it too!

Today I got a cheap-o, cute, design-y fram from Ikea. $1.

I took the little rectangle of paper out and traced it onto a piece of white paper. Then I got out Cupcakes’ markers, which she doesn’t get to use everyday because they are messy and require very close supervision. She LOVES them, and that made this project a lot of fun. The markers we have are little toddler ones that fit small hands. :)

Cupcakes enthusiastically grabbed a marker and started marking away. I helped her close the first one and then she’d tell me which color she wanted next. (Did you know she can say all the colors?! Check out this video!)

She probably would have done this with me all night, but before too long, it was dinner time. She used to be this way with crayons, but now doesn’t like them quite so much… that makes me pretty nervous for Mass tomorrow, but I digress. Back to the art project –

Look how precious!!!

I had to encourage her to color inside the rectangle:

Cut out the rectangle, put it between the pieces of plastic, and insert into frame.
[NOTE: If you have the Ikea frame, you'll notice the little recycle symbol on the plastic pieces. I found out this time that they come off! (I thought they were painted on when I made the menu planning board) You have to kind of use your nail and peel from the very top. It should come off easily after you get it started.]

Look how proud she is:

Optional variations -

* Add a photo to the middle
* Do something fun with negative space like cut a shape out of the middle and paste to a colored piece of construction paper (if you do that, make sure your toddler colors on the other side – you see the project from both sides).
* Have your toddler use markers and crayons.
* Let your toddler add stickers.