Ziplock bag painting

I love painting with my girls but sometimes I’m just not in the right frame of mind for dealing with the mess that it generates. Ziplock bag painting seemed to be the perfect way to let the girls enjoy having fun with paints and not have any mess to clear up afterwards – plus I knew I wouldn’t have to worry about Sophie trying to eat the paint either!

 

Ziplock bag painting - a quick and easy mess-free alternative to painting with toddlers - Little Hearts, Big Love

Setting up was easy – I took two ziplock bags, squirted some poster paint into each bag, and zipped them back up, trying to get as much air out in the process without squashing the paint splodges too much. I then taped each bag to a piece of white paper using spark tape. The white paper made it easier to see the colours and the spark tape helped make sure that the paint definitely stayed inside the bag.

 

Ziplock bag painting - a quick and easy mess-free alternative to painting with toddlers - Little Hearts, Big Love

Jessica and Sophie enjoyed moving the paint around with their fingers and mixing the colours up.

 

Ziplock bag painting - a quick and easy mess-free alternative to painting with toddlers - Little Hearts, Big Love

We used toy cars to make tracks in the paint…

 

Ziplock bag painting - a quick and easy mess-free alternative to painting with toddlers - Little Hearts, Big Love

…and shapes to make prints.

 

Ziplock bag painting - a quick and easy mess-free alternative to painting with toddlers - Little Hearts, Big Love

Jessica had a lot of fun drawing different pictures once the paints were more mixed up.

 

Ziplock bag painting - a quick and easy mess-free alternative to painting with toddlers - Little Hearts, Big Love

Whilst the shape prints and the drawings were quite transient due to the paint moving back again fairly quickly, creating little pictures in the paint kept both girls occupied for a while. Sophie even rolled her ziplock bag into a tube and the paint still managed to stay inside.

 

Ziplock bag painting - a quick and easy mess-free alternative to painting with toddlers - Little Hearts, Big Love

The finished ‘drawings’ were easy to put away as they didn’t need to be dried out and we have got the bags out again a few times in the last couple of days to do some more ‘painting’ with them. It’s definitely been a good non-messy alternative to painting.

 

Ziplock bag painting - a quick and easy mess-free alternative to painting with toddlers - Little Hearts, Big Love

 

39 thoughts on “Ziplock bag painting

  1. This is a brilliant idea! My little one still tries to eat everything even though she’s gone one. I’m going to try doing this with her this week. I think she’ll be fascinated by it 😀 xx

  2. You nailed it. That is what I imagined when doing this activity with my baby. What I got was him chucking it away and me playing by myself. Sigh. Maybe I’ll try again next year.

    #sharewithme

    1. Lol, Sophie was a bit more like that but Jessica had fun so maybe it will work better later on! 🙂

  3. What a fab idea!!! I have to be in the right mood for toddler painting and this would be perfect for those days when I can’t be faffed to get the paints/paper/overalls/wipes/wipeclean sheet out! x #kidscorner

  4. What a great idea – I have tried this before but I didn’t think of taping it to the paper so it didn’t work as well as yours and I love the fact that the different colours mix together and create new colours what a great talking point about colours. xx #Kidscorner

    1. Thank you – the girls enjoyed mixing the colours and taping it to the paper did make it work quite well 🙂

  5. I love the no mess idea of this. I just always forget about trying it. Although we never have any paint that’s not dried out!

  6. Aaah what a fantastic idea. Olivia loves painting and we do get a lot mess eeek. I can’t wait to try this with her. xx Have a fantastic weekend. xx

  7. Oh I really like the fact you put paper behind it, I tried it on the table and it wasn’t the same with a wooden background. Will try this again! Thanks for sharing in #KidsCorner x

    1. I was going to stick it to the table originally but the tape wouldn’t stick down properly so I taped it to the paper instead and it worked much better. Lovely to link up 🙂

  8. Ahh what a lovely creation and so fun too. Looks like the kids had a ball. I need to do more of this with my two. Thank you so much for linking up to Share With Me. Hope to see you again tomorrow. #sharewithme

    1. Thanks Jenny – we had a lot of funny. Always a pleasure to link up to #sharewithme 🙂

  9. The Mother says – What a great idea. Painting without the mess. Now, I’m a huge fan of this but I don’t think Lucas would go for it……… there’s no mess!! Thanks for linking to #minicreations

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