Kids Crafts – Painting wooden letters and shapes

I love finding something different for the children to do in terms of craft.  We bake a lot together but I run out of ideas for things to make.  When Fjord was a baby I bought painted wooden letters to spell his name on his bedroom door.  I have been looking around for some for Acacia without much luck. 

Last week was Fjord’s 6th birthday.  I am not a fan of party packs for children to take home, instead I usually buy something for them to make and take home. This gives them something fun to do together at the party, and a keepsake.  When he turned 4 we did tie-dyed T-shirts.  For his 5th birthday we did fabric painting on T-shirts.  This year I wanted to do glass or ceramic painting but then saw lovely wooden cut out shapes which children can paint and put up on their bedroom walls or doors.  I found these @ Crafters Market @ Carnival Mall.  There was a wonderful range of shapes, dinosaurs, dolphins, flowers, butterflies, trains, whales and so much more.  I bought a few bottles of Dala craft paint and a few Dala glitter paint.  I also found wooden letters to spell out Acacia’s name. 

At the party the children had fun painting the shapes which they chose.  We found that the glitter paint did not work very well straight onto the wood and then got the children to first paint a layer of plain paint, let it dry, then paint the glitter paint over.

A week later I took out the letters for Acacia to paint.  She turned 3, 3 weeks ago.  I expected a rather sloppy attempt but felt that her having the fun and satisfaction of the activity was more important than them looking perfect.  I was surprised that she actually did the painting very neatly and carefully.  Most importantly she loved doing it.