Shell Stamps and Painting

For this project, gather any shells you have around your house. If you do not have shells, you can make your own stampers. I love to use toilet paper rolls for circles and ovals (posts on that coming soon). You may cut out a shell shape out of a sponge, or heavy cardboard. If you are using something like cardboard that doesn't have sides to hold, you can easily glue down a handle. Using cardboard (can take from cereal boxes, toilet paper rolls, etc), cut out a rectangle, about .5 wide and 4 in long. Glue both long sides down on your cut out stamp, so that the sides meet each other and a handle has been created (the rest of the rectangle is up and curved around). Use gorilla glue, a hot glue gun, or strong tape. You can also carve a shape out of a potato for a stamper, but, it's a lot of work. Work smarter not harder people. I'd suggest a sponge if you have an extra. You can order cheap sponges online if you want to keep some on hand. They can be used for many activities and don't take up a lot of storage space (unlike saving every toilet paper roll and plastic bottle for unknown future projects :/ I don't know who would do that though..)

You'll need:

Shells

Shell shaped stamp

Paint

Wide paint container

Paper

Directions:

Set up your child for this paint activity. Put out the piece of paper, and a wide container for paint. Tupperware works great. A toddler plate with sides would work as well. I suggest two paint containers, using two colors that will mix well together for an ocean theme. Either take ocean colors, or sand colors. I'd suggest: blue with green, purple with blue, or yellow with orange or yellow or orange with white. Put out the materials and let your child go! They may want to paint the shells, they may want to use them as stampers, they may want to roll them on the page. It's up to them!