Painting with Acorns

You may have noticed it's been a quiet few weeks here. Adjusting to our new schedules and a minor illness have definitely left us a little thrown off the last few weeks. But despite our quiet front here online, we are still finding a few moments to craft and create.

One great aspect of our new schedules is that Little Brother and I have a few hours a week that's just the two of us. This is a first for us and we're both enjoying it! It's been fun to think of some projects that are geared just for him.

As we slip into fall this acorn painting was an easy and fun toddler project.

We were inspired by our post a few weeks ago on 35+ Fall Painting Ideas to try painting in a new way, using something simple we could already find in our yard this month. 

Materials:

Acorns (Little Brother helped me find ours in the yard)

Washable paint (we used fall colors)

A cardboard box

Construction paper

Tape

We used a method similar to one we used when we painted with magnetic marbles.  

First we taped the white paper into the bottom of the cardboard box. Next we added a few drops of each color paint, and then dropped in the acorns. 

Little Brother could not wait to pick up the box and get started, even though I hadn't explained how we were going to do it yet. He quickly grabbed it and started tipping the box back and forth so the acorns rolled through the paint. 

He kept rolling the box, tipping it in more directions until the entire paper was covered in paint. The colors mixed as he painted, creating a "marbled" look.

The acorns were kind of pretty too, as they picked up the different colors!

This was such an easy and fun way to paint, we'll definitely be trying it again. It also was a great way to use something we already had in the yard, without buying more supplies. We're having such a great acorn year we're going to try and be thinking of even more ways to use acorns!

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