Playing as a family is one of the essential ways to build a connection with one another. Do you know what are some of your favorite ways to play together? For our family, having a family paint night is something we all enjoy. As the kids get older, it might not be what they suggest anymore, but if I do the work to set it all up, they still get into it.
Do you feel like your evenings can be a mash up of running kids to their activities, someone working late, homework, filming projects, school board meetings, and it’s rare to be all home on an evening together? That can’t be just me, right!?
It’s been a bit crazy over here. As I saw a night approaching where we would all be home (and knew we had all been carrying a lot), I wanted to create a fun moment for us to connect, play and recharge together. Here I give you our family paint night!
I love a good collaborative project.
When we all start with the same base shape or project, it’s fun to brainstorm and see the similarities and differences each of us comes up with. This is a fun way to see how each other’s mind thinks, portray individual interests into the project, and see the different styles and techniques emerge. The energy given off is usually lighthearted and playful, as the goal is to just have fun.
This egg garland project allows us to each have our own project, but they will be strung up together. It’s always fun to work towards something as a ‘team’.
The set up is part of the fun for me.
It’s been a while, since I have set up a paint workshop. I had so much fun picking out paint colors and pulling everything together. I have learned that although art can be freeing and messy, we still have a lot of power and control in what supplies we break out.
I choose to use just paint and only certain spring colors of paint. Even though my creative heart thought of glue and sequins. I decided to not break those out, and keep it more simple. As a result, it was…
- Less intimidating for artists to decide what they want to do.
- Less clean up for me.
Reagan did end up pulling out the black paint. Her creative heart needed it 🙂
Having the set up ready to go is helpful when you are inviting and asking for participation. It makes the start easier and you don’t lose any way-ward artists to distraction while you gather it all together.
The goal is to have fun.
We laughed and painted that night. I know the moods in our house were more uplifting, light-hearted and connected after this playful activity. It was a break in the fast pace of life. We slowed down and did something intentional together. It’s important to remember the goal is to have fun. If we put too much pressure on the results then it becomes stressful and we didn’t need anymore of that.
After all the eggs dried, I strung them up and added some fabric and yarn for extra texture fun. I love looking at it hung up now.
- I see my Caleb and his forever love of basketball.
- I see my Jeremiah in his blending and mixing of all kinds of colors to make his “perfect” purple shade.
- I see my Reagan having a vision and searching up how to paint a jellyfish and bunny.
- I see my husband putting so much care into his focused pieces, as he slows down from a busy day.
- I see my simple designs, because I had more fun watching and connecting everyone else.
Having a physical piece as part of this night’s memory makes the memory and connection that much stronger. If you haven’t played by a having a paint night with your family recently, I highly recommend it!
If you want to do this project, I may have a few of the kits I created left for sale in our store. It’s worth jumping over to check!
In summary, these are a few tips that help guide our family paint nights. I hope they can help you too!
We had so much painting.
Occasionally, we still reference jokes from that night, as we enjoy our new spring decoration together.
Having this activity right after dinner one night, made for a fun evening. After all the eggs were painted, I used the leftover paint to paint the paper that had been a part of our set up. I painted big swirls and smalls dots, as Matt told me about his day and the kids got going with the rest of their night. Having my hands creating, while talking has always been something I enjoy!
Those scrap papers became their own creation, as you can see below and snatch up in the store as well.
Now, what about you? Will you have a family paint night soon?
Remember, the most important part is to have fun. Protect your table, embrace the process, and watch your artists unplug as you connect together. It will be an experience you tuck away in the long term memories.
If you love this little imagination starter, you might enjoy my list of 30 Ways to Play as well. Enjoy!
Do you ever find yourself needing just a safe, inexpensive way to play?
With back to school shopping happening, composition notebooks are only about $0.50 each right now. What a cheap canvas! I bought eight notebooks, gave them a quick spray paint to have a blank canvas and got started just brushing them with big bold strokes of acrylic paint.
I played with colors mixing, making subtle blends, and big bold blends. It was so fun and satisfying to squirt paint directly onto the notebook and to just start brushing and watching that paint move. I played with directions, pressure of the brush, and the amount of paint. It was therapeutic to play with colors I love and stretch myself with new colors.
I loved having eight notebooks to do at once. It allowed me to keep going and not having to wait long periods for a base coat to dry before I painted more. Once all eight of my first coats on the journals dried, I came back and added some more concrete brush strokes on top of my abstract blends.
I loved picking contrasting colors and create movement that went against the other brush strokes. The final step was stamping some circles and squirting some 
What do you think? Will you pick up some composition notebooks next time you are at the store? I had so much fun creating these covers that now I am continuing on in them! I love art journaling and after leading some 
Have you art journaled? If you haven’t, you may just love it. It is one of my favorite ways to rest and process the world around me!
Do you love recycling trash into treasures as much as we do!?
The first step is to collect your soup cans. We have gotten in the habit of just saving all our soup cans, so when a project idea arises, we are ready with cans on hand. I take the paper wrapper off our soup cans and run them through the dishwasher with our dishes to get clean. Once you have your dry cans, you are ready to create! We spray painted our cans white to have a nice matte base coat for this project. 
While the tin cans were drying, we collected our spray paint cans and filled a bucket with water. For each can, we choose two different spray paint colors. We added one color at a time.
The can comes out of the water looked marbleized and super fun! After you get the hang of it, you can play with how much spray paint you spray on top of the water to create a more thick or less thick look on your can. We had so much fun doing all four of our cans that we prepped!
After the cans were dry, we used ours to hold art supplies. You could do the same or turn it into something else! A wind chime, flower pot, vase, or candle holder are fun ways to use your new canister too. 
You can personalize this craft using colors that fit your taste or the size can that fits your need best.
How fun are those!? We think they look like they belong on shelves in World Market or Anthropologie. We found some white candle sticks that make the colors pop even more, and we are going to use them as Christmas presents for family this year!
If you paint or have a child that likes to paint, you probably have gone through some paint bottles, right!? For years and years, I have just thrown these little bottles out when they seem to be empty. Now that we have an 
My family uses essential oils, so we have these little 
for mixing oils up. I used them to suck up water/paint mixture from the bottle to drop on a wooden sign. The results were stunning and mesmerizing to watch a fluid art abstract piece come to life. The best part, this was a practically free project. As our studio has been asked to come into our local schools to complete art projects, we try to come up with amazing projects for not a lot of cost. This was the perfect project for just that. Watch how this project came to life through a group of 5th-grade students and then can follow the steps and create your own.
In the classroom, I stapled on a pipe-cleaner and twisted it up to allow the students to fill it with beads. This added a nice fun texture and hanger to make our wood pieces into hangable signs. You don’t have to do this step to your pieces, but I am a sucker for several textures in my projects.
This project is all about the process. You can’t totally control what your piece will end up looking like, which takes some of the stress of it being “perfect” away. I encouraged the students I was working with to do small drops at a time. Some of the bottles may be more watered down than others. By starting with small drops you can watch as colors blend together on their own to make new colors.
Another technique is you can slightly tilt these signs or even stand them up to watch as the paint colors blend and mix to make a stunning abstract piece!
I don’t think you can ruin this project. Often students thought they were done and then they would add one more color. At this point, it is usually when it became more stunning. As the signs dried, some of the paint colors would shift and sort out a little. So fun!
We went back and sprayed a 
 on top of our signs, once they were dry. I use a gloss spray that adds a shine and helps them to look finished and more professional. We talked about how you could use this abstract painted piece as the backdrop to then paint a message on top. Maybe to say a phrase or inspirational word like “courage”.
I love how no matter how many times you do this project, no two signs will ever be the same. Depending on the colors you use and how your paint swirls and mixes together…each piece will be unique. This was such an inexpensive project to implement for a 5th-grade class. They had a blast.
What do you think? Will you start saving your paint bottles? I think these finished pieces make a great gift for a family member. Christmas is coming. You can create some masterpieces with your kids for all those proud grandparents.