Baby's First Art Project!

Chris and I are always searching for new things to do with S that are interesting and stimulating for her. Recently, I found myself thinking it would be fun to somehow get her involved in creating a piece of art. But how would we do this without ending up with multi-coloured poo ("kid safe" as it may be), not to mention a re-donk-ulously large mess?

Well, I googled around and found a great blog post demonstrating that indeed, Babies CAN do crafts! And babies much younger than S, at that!

The article describes four clean & safe art projects that can be tackled by babies as young as 3 months old (if not younger!) They all look pretty neat, however I decided to try out the first one (Ziploc bag art) as it is SUPER easy to do!

Step 1: Gather materials - paint, paper and bag. (I used 3 colours of Funstuff Tempera paint, a piece of printer paper cut to fit and a medium heavy-duty freezer bag.)

Step 2: Squeeze a dollop of each paint colour onto the paper and carefully slide it into the bag. (I managed to smear the red a little - oops!)

Step 3: Give the "apparatus" to baby and watch what transpires! (The original article suggests talking about the colours, how it feels, etc. I tried this, however S preferred to just lay the smack down, smushing it around in her hands and dragging it across the kitchen floor. :)

Step 4: Marvel at the artistic masterpiece!

Here is S's finished product! She actually "worked" on it for a couple days as it hung around on her playmat, piquing her interest every now and then. Now we just need to find the best way to display it! Any suggestions?

Have you found any other successful methods for introducing art to young babies? I'd love to try out some new projects!