Do you remember picking out gifts for your adult family members when you were a kiddo? I do, and most of the time it was snoring boring. Adults just didn’t want things that I thought were fun to give! It’s a wonderful thing to teach children the joy of giving, and I discovered a way to get my children super excited about family gift giving this year— We took a couple of days out of our week to make gifts.

Alright, so the thing about homemade gifts is that while they are often fun to give, they’re not always so fun to receive! Of course, loving grandparents will cherish anything their grandkiddos gift them in earnest, but I wanted to make it easier for Lucy and Juniper’s family to really use and enjoy the gifts the girls made for them, so we settled on the things I’ve been most in awe of as far as their kiddo talents go: abstract paintings!

The girls always love to paint. Give them a store receipt to paint and they’re thrilled, but give them an easel and a canvas? Suddenly their inner Matisse comes out! Such a thrill for them to do, and a joy for me to watch.

Below are the paintings the girls made over the course of two days. They’re really special paintings that I’d totally hang on my wall, so I’m certain Lucy and Junipers grandparents, aunts, and uncles will as well! Right now I’m working on framing them up to look very polished and much like something you’d pick up at a boutique or artisan market. Some of the frames will be natural, some stained dark, and some painted white. I was able to find quite a few small scraps of wood from my workshop to fashion the frames, so I’m pretty happy about that!

A lot of you have asked what kind of process we do when we let the kids paint, so I wanted to talk a bit about that. We used acrylic craft paints for these primed canvases, and I didn’t bring out all of the paint colors we have in our home. I selected the colors that I put into little glass bowls, and then they could choose from them as they worked on their canvases. Since they painted the canvases over the course of two days, I was able to have different paint colors for each session. For the first paint session I gave them pink, orange, teal, and brown. The second day they were able to use shades of green and blue and browns, but then we finished up with some pink and yellow per their request.

The reason I restricted the color scheme may be obvious, but I wanted to have finished paintings that would coordinate well with the gift recipients’ homes. The girls would’ve chosen wild colors and create a brownish mashup after all of their blending (I’m looking at you, Juniper!), and something like that wouldn’t be as special hanging on the wall, even if it is framed.

As far as their technique goes, I did try to guide them when they painted the large canvas for our living room (mostly because it was such a huge space for them to work with), but this time around I just let them go to town, occasionally suggesting they try a certain color of quit when it looked nice, but literally every time I made a suggestion it was ignored! Ha!

I did ask them not to dip a brush with one color of paint on it into a bowl with a different color of paint. I spent quite a bit of time washing and drying brushes as they painted, but we tried to designate certain brushes for certain colors of paint. That didn’t always go over very well. They were little divas telling me to wash their brushes. But hey! At least they listened and didn’t make all of the bowls of paint brown from mixing.

We will eventually talk about mixing paint and I can teach them about making new colors after blending, but right now they’re not too interested in learning. They just love the process, so I give them some parameters so they can create something really lovely with their efforts.

I will say, the first day we painted, Juniper had a little meltdown when we finished up. Poor thing! She was having so much fun. However, she was ready for a nap. I learned from that experience and the next day we began painting after she woke up from her nap and had enjoyed a little snack. Much better!

When planning out the decor of our living room, I knew I wanted a large, minimal, mostly white abstract art piece to go above the credenza, sort of to anchor the space, since the wall is just a large mass of whiteness. Realizing how expensive original art can be, and how difficult finding the perfect oversize print can be, I decided to make my own! Well, sort of. I commissioned my children to paint an abstract piece for me.

Of course, when you commission your children to make art, you never know what you’re going to get. I was a little nervous, but I figured, hey, if we hate it, we can let them paint over it until we like it! Which is sort of what I did anyway. Here’s my experience…

I purchased large canvas stretchers from a local craft/art supply shop, and a piece of canvas by the yard. I used my staple gun and clamps to stretch the canvas across the wood frame, then rolled over top of it with some wall primer, because we always have plenty of it around, and I didn’t want to have to buy a ton of gesso to prep the canvas.

I bought some large bottles of acrylic paint, and mixed a variety of neutral hues and shades into disposable bowls. Then I grabbed a couple of roller sizes, a paint tray, big paint brushes, little paint brushes, and put out two shades of paint to get the kids started. After Lucy became bored with the paint and brushes she started with, I brought out different brushes and different shades of paint.

Now, you might wonder how much guidance I gave as the kiddos painted. Really, this was more a sensory exercise than it was an unguided art experiment, so yeah, I was definitely involved with art directing this piece! Ha! I obviously selected all of the colors (or lack thereof) involved, but I was pretty surprised with how much I liked what Lucy created with it. I would suggest things from time to time, like, “What about working in that corner over there?” Or, “Have you tried to make blotches with the tip of the brush?” I suggested blending more, splotching, long brush strokes, and whatever else came to mind, but she did with those directions what she wanted. And honestly, the reason I had the kids make the art instead of me, is because I love how open-ended their minds are, without any preconceived notion of what they want their creation to look like. At least at this age, they can just paint abstractly in a way that I never can.

Juniper was newly two years old at the time of this art project, so I gave her sections to work on, and she just enjoyed painting with a small brush. She definitely smeared the paint around a bit with her body at times, but it all adds to the freeform charm of the thing!

I do plan to frame the canvas soon, and try some more canvases of medium and smaller sizes with the kids. I’ll share more about different guidance techniques and more of letting Lucy do whatever she wants on the canvas. I’m really excited to see how her creations come together!

I’m always a little sad when daylight begins to dwindle every Fall, but then I remember how much I love the cozy, comforting glow of candlelight in the evenings! Lucy and I got a jump start on cozy-lit evenings with our jack-o-lantern project we did last week.

Lucy was relatively patient as I took pictures along the way, and surprisingly she was grossed out by the pumpkin guts, so I did all the scooping and scavenging for seeds. (This is the girl who loves digging for bugs and playing in the mud. Make it productive, and it’s not as fun, though!)

According to Lucy, pumpkins smell like watermelon. And her favorite was the medium-size tan pumpkin. I loved that one too, and it’s deep orange insides were a surprise.

Check out how we created these jack-o-lanterns over at A Beautiful Mess. I didn’t want to get too crazy this early in the season by making a whole batch of these cuties, only to have them rot before Halloween. So I think I’ll wait a bit and make a few more for our front stoop. Gotta up the trick-or-treat game this year— make a good impression in the new neighborhood and all that! :)